


Second Chances

by medical_mechanica, Verdin



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Everyone Has Issues, Frenemies, M/M, Nadia (The Arcana) Route - Upright Ending, Nadia's Route, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Probably smut soon, Romance, Slow Burn, Tarot, Tarot Readings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-01-05 15:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21210779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medical_mechanica/pseuds/medical_mechanica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdin/pseuds/Verdin
Summary: Lucio has never been good at asking for help, but he’s willing to give the idea of ‘being nice’ a try. Everything else has failed, after all. After death, exile, and being cursed, what’s the worst that can happen?(Knowing us, probably romance and naughty things.)





	1. Chapter 1

This place, of all places. He reviles the idea. Having to ask for help is bad enough, having to ask Asra is worse. Worst. Worse than death. Well, maybe not quite worse than death, because death is pretty unpleasant no matter how you try to find it, and after the world chewed him through and spit him out again, Montag rather wouldn't repeat the process. Not that he didn't try. Oh, how he tried. _Thanks, mother._

He knocks on the door of the damned shop, somehow unchanged after these three years. One beggar among many on the streets of Vesuvia, a sorry cripple, useless and dirty, and he drags the hood further over his head. It fills him with a certain satisfaction that Noddy's high and mighty promises to change everything for the better didn't come true as fast as she had wished, that old bad habits seemed to get the better of her despite her magician's influence. On the road, he had heard about the political struggle against increasing Prakrian influence, and he knew without having to hear it that the Sisters were arguing again. She was never good at letting go of old anger, no matter what she said. It takes a bit, but finally, he hears stirring from behind the door.

“It’s open.” A familiar voice calls out, an unsuspecting voice, one of a person who has no current reason to be angry or upset. _Yet._ Montag is stalling outside of the door, not expecting to have to be the one that enters the shop. Opening his own door. Making his own entrance.  
“Come in,” the voice repeats, and finally he does. He takes a few steps in, closing the door behind him.

Asra, same as ever, is by a bookshelf, organizing fifty things at once, balancing a book, some crystals, a strange box - all of which fall to the ground suddenly. Obviously, he notices the wretch in the doorway. In an instant, he recognizes the blond with the missing arm. He can’t help from gasping, only slightly pained, clueless, but not angry. Not yet. After a beat, he tilts his head, questioning his sanity, or at least his wakefulness.  
“You.” It’s not accusatory, nor is it questioning. It is a statement.  
"You _remember_?" Tears well up in eyes not used to shedding them. Somehow, it would have been better if he didn't. _Hey shopkeep, a witch cursed me, got something against it_?

Montag draws the hood even deeper, wiping away the salty water with a dirty sleeve, but the tears don't stop. He doesn't want Asra to see such weakness. "I mean, I'm just a random cripple. You must be mistaking me, and I... I should probably leave?"  
“I know it’s you _Lucio_. Drop the act.” The magician is curt, eyes narrowed. He takes a tentative step forward, ready to pounce, or retreat.  
The figure just _stands_, shoulders slumped, unsure what to do. _Helpless_, it seems, even if that's a strange thing to say about the true scourge of this town.  
It's a bit like seeing a ghost again, but one that, by all amounts, shouldn't be here. Nadia had banished him, and the guards ordered to kill him on sight. Now that he thinks about it, Asra remembers that.  
“…. What are you doing here?” Incredulous, the magician moves to pick up the dropped items, but never once takes his eyes off of the man standing before him.  
Lucio swallows hard. Saying this is even worse than he imagined.  
"_I come to ask for help_," and he slowly, hesitantly, drops to his knees.

At this, Asra bursts into a fit of laughter, mid-shelving, nearly dropping everything again. Lucio doesn’t move from his spot, and the laughter dies down. Putting everything down in a quick heap, the magician turns to give him his full attention. Lucio’s demeanor doesn’t seem threatening, and he isn’t giving off any strange energy, but he can’t be serious. “No really, why are you _here_?” Asra points down, indicating the shop.  
Montag cringes under the hood. Being laughed at is nothing he is made for, his pride still remaining, well, the sorry few pieces of it, and there's still a spark that wants to ignite his anger, but he breathes through it.  
"Dammit, Asra, I'm serious. Don't make this worse." _Not that you don't have every right to._  
“The guards should have picked you up. Or Nadi. Or-” This time, Asra subtly cringes, not wanting to name any more people or entities. It’s weird how sincere Lucio is being. _Weird._ Again, the scruffy head of white hair tilts slightly as Asra studies the kneeling figure, still wondering if he is dreaming.  
“This makes no sense.” The phrase is calm, if slow, and his tone reasonable, but the entirety of the magician’s body tense.

"I wish they would have." The head under the hood sinks down. "I tried, you know? I really did. Noddy promised me death should I return, and I wanted to hold her true to her word, but..."  
Asra, more confused than ever, squints at him. Comes to squat on his knees before him. Cautiously, he sticks out a forefinger, and slowly pokes at his chest. Just testing.  
“I don’t get it. No one did anything? You mean everyone is just fine with you being back here?”  
"You are the first person to _remember_ me. The guards just beat the shit out of me when I claimed to be who I am. ‘Poor madman, now piss off, be glad we don't just lock you up.’" Chest feels solid enough, but that doesn't prove anything, not necessarily. Asra's dreams tend to be very realistic.  
True enough to his words, Lucio sports several bruises and a cut lip. It brightens Asra’s mood, and the idea strikes him to test the man’s corporealness in similar ways should the need arise. Then it occurs to him exactly what Lucio is implying.  
“… No one _recognizes_ you?” It has to be some kind of joke. It is just the kind of thing the goatman would pull. Without asking, he yanks down Lucio’s hood. It’s very much him, or someone that looks just like him.  
Admittedly, he's dirty, and bearded, hair haphazardly cut with what was probably a knife, but it would need a particular kind of idiot to rock those markings around the eyes.  
"You ever met my mother, Asra? Morga?"  
“Maybe. Why?” He might have, somewhere, in passing, rushing around while trying to _save the world_.  
"She found me after Noddy threw me out. Wanted to kill me first, but then decided that death was too good for me, and she had a better idea."  
“… And that idea was to make you a hobo?”  
"Heh. Not how she put it. She was more along the lines of _taking my name, and all recognition_. Taking my story, so that I am less than nothing to the world." He pulls a face. "I'm a nobody now. A useless waste of space. It's... no fun at all."  
A very broad smile slowly creeps its way over Asra’s face, and he wills it not to become a smug smirk, but fails. The connotation of what has befallen the man he once considered his greatest enemy was all too perfect. He thanks Lucio’s mother while he turns his smirk into a considering pout.

“So, what do you want _me_ to do about it?” The magician shrugs, before he stands back up.

"Ask your cards if there is something _I_ can do about it. Or bask in triumph. Guess I would too. It's a pretty good punishment, have to admit it, creative and in for the long haul. Probably a good thing for the city I never took after her."  
He sits down unceremoniously. The floor is hard, and his knees hurt.

Defeat is a strange look on the man, so Asra ends up staring at him again, in spite of the fact that he returned to his bookshelves. He could tell the cards would not want to answer him. And to be honest, neither did he. His first instinct always is to invite the customer to the back to sit for a reading, but he isn’t going to do that for this one.  
It makes a certain amount of sense that Asra, of all people, is the only one to recognize him. It wouldn’t be the first time he was the only one to remember things he wished he didn’t.

“Have you run into anyone else? You didn’t see Nadia or… anyone, did you?  
"Jules. He..." His lower lip trembles, and he bites back new tears. "He gave me a few coins. Seems to be doing well for himself, but other than that..." A shake of the head. No recognition.

The magician sighs.  
“He could have just been ignoring you. Or… have you seen your face?”  
"C'mon, like Jules could ignore _me_." A barely contained scoff erupts from Asra, but he shoves it into yet another book put placed back on the shelf. While it was gratifying to laugh at Lucio’s misfortune, he still still acted like himself.  
“Doesn’t seem like all of this memory loss will keep you down for very long.” The magician rolls his eyes.

A long pause.  
"I don't want to go on like I did, Asra. Enough blood has been spilled."  
_And it's no fun when nobody punches you in the shoulder and told you you did well._

“Bullshit.” The magician spits back quicker than he can help, looking away. He wants to tell Lucio to leave, he wants to choke the man to death, he wants to do _so many things_ to exact revenge. But enough people seem to have done that already. Maybe, to start, he could try to make the once supposedly dead man _understand_.  
Not looking at Lucio, instead looking down, Asra sighs.  
“What makes you think that you mean that? Or anything else?” He feels frozen in place, at once too angry to move, and too sad. “You tried to take _everything_ from me. I owe you nothing.” The warble in his voice is too noticeable for his liking, and he turns away, wishing anyone else were there to deal with this mess.  
"Make me pay, then. Or tell me to leave, so I won't waste your time any longer. I’ll accept both."

It's strange to hear the Count so resigned. What the sickness never managed, recent years seem to have.  
It was hard _not_ to remember. The years of resentment, and plague, the _pressure_ and the planning… And the few short months where Asra remembers the Lucio softening at the thought of a final death, the blip of a time where he _was_ kind, or at least affable, and most of all… sorry. Eyes flicker back up to the haggard figure sitting on his floor. Sneering to himself, Asra drops what he is doing once more and moves up to stand before Lucio.  
“Get in the back. I’ll give you a reading.” The words are begrudging. He doesn’t wait for the other to walk into the back room, curtain flailing behind him with the necessary drama. Lucio gets up with a groan. His joints hurt from age and abuse, and he joins him in the small room. Not a lot has changed here either. Some new crystals, some more wards, but it is still _home_, and while the other one is in the palace these days, their spirit still hangs in here.

Asra is already waiting at the table, sitting down with his chin in hand. The look on his face still pained, if not slightly disgruntled. Before him are his cards, tried and true as ever. As Lucio enters the room, the magician pats the seat beside him.  
"You don't want that." Lucio warns courteously. "Last bath has been a while."  
Rolling his eyes, Asra facepalms. Sighing into it, he looks back up at his once nemesis.

“I can tell, go upstairs. You can bathe.” Looks up then, making a face. “I just don’t want you stinking up the shop.”  
"Can just stand next to the open window, really. Don't want to steal more of your time than I already have."  
Admittedly, a bath would not have a lot of effect as long as the layers of clothes remain unwashed, and the man is not only his enemy, but also has been dead and a goat. Maybe one grows used to the stench.  
“Oh, I was just waiting to burn your things when you weren’t looking.” It’s nice to openly make fun of him to his face, and have him take it, but still. “And it’s not me asking you to sit, it’s the cards. _You’re_ just being disrespectful.” As always. Not to mention this ‘pity me’ thing always irked Asra.  
"Burning my things _after_ I take them off? Well, that's new. So a bath it is then, I guess. Can I borrow a towel? Oh, and soap, maybe. Soap would be good,"  
_Could have just burned them while you were still wearing them, but it's not like that worked last time either._

It’s not that Asra is happy with the situation, he just knows it’s outside of his control by this point. Everything else that he tried didn’t seem to stick. And in Nadia’s opinion, and even Lucio’s mother’s opinion, death was too easy for the Count. But did no one consider the one magician who might end up having to deal with the fallout of those choices? Again? In the past, Asra had sworn that if it wasn’t for that wonderful creature of a being that had blessed his life before leaving it twice, he would have killed Lucio himself. Now, he is the only one that remembers the man.  
_Figures_.  
“It’s all up there, go ahead.” The magician replies flatly, trying none too hard to remember how many times he had been indefinitely left in charge of the shop. Muriel doesn’t even want to live here, but who could blame him with small door frames like these.

And upstairs Lucio goes, exploring the innards of the shop for the first time.  
Getting rid of the layers would be difficult with two arms, with one it's... no fun at all, even when Montag is used to it by now. He misses a manservant, a decently competent one, but that's just one of many luxuries that won't be happening again. Hot water and soap, on the other hand, is one that is happening right now, and he abuses a brush that is probably meant for scrubbing the floors to get down the worst of the crust of dirt and old skin. The scars mother left still hurt, clean cuts from when she opened his abdomen and took pieces of his heart and his liver for her ritual, and Montag is pretty sure she _wanted_ them to hurt as another reminder.  
First round of soap and brush and water, and then a second one, and he tries to get the dirt out of at least the layers he wears on the skin, letting them soak while he tries to untangle his hair.

The bastard is taking his sweet time up there.  
It’s enough time for Asra to ask the cards his own questions, reaching out to The Magician himself for an answer to the man’s presence. A similar feeling floods him as always does when he enters the Magician’s Realm, but he continues to sit in the back of the shop. Distantly, he can hear a loud laugh, that of his master, before it all fades. Asra frowns. Shuffling the cards, he keeps the disgraced Count in his mind, face stuck in his frown. He plops a card down.  
The Wheel of Fortune. _What goes around comes around._  
Eyes narrowing, Asra shakes his head, sucking his teeth in disdain.  
After blinking to himself in a kind of daze, he begins to mildly worry that the man is just trying to rob him. It urges the magician makes his way up the stairs with a few dashed hops. The water still runs. Crestfallen, he moves to sit on the bed. If only Lucio was being an ass again, he could feel nothing when he inevitably throws the dead man out.  
This, somehow, might be worse.

It's only after the third scrubbing that Montag dares to sit down in the hot water and close his eyes, just for a few minutes. Drowning. Has he tried drowning yet? Oh yes. Cutting his wrists too, and it just made a horrible mess, with no end in sight. _Thanks mom._ He knows he  
shouldn't let Asra wait for too long, but it's nice enough to let him have this moment, it feels so nice. He lets the water run over his face, for a moment taking in a blissful stillness.  
When he finally closes the door to the bathroom behind him, he's in a still moist and somewhat white shirt and shorts, the rest of his clothes wrapped in the wet towel. Old Lucio would have gone down there buck naked, expecting any onlooker to bask in the glory of his exposed form, but Montag by now feels strange without a protective shell.  
"Asra?" he calls down. "Is there somewhere I can let my things air out?"  
The magician surprises him by appearing just beside him, expression indiscernible.

“Well, you don’t reek now.” With a mutter, he walks over to a window with its shutters open, and points to a clothing line, before pointing to a bin of clothes pins.  
“I’ll see you downstairs.” With that, the magician stalks off, letting his mind dwell on how helpless the cursed man looked soaking wet. It sits in his head for too long, getting under his skin. Memory of the nights he let his guard down around the sick man years before haunts him. The pity that once seeped into his touch, and the sickening intimacy that followed. Then, of course, Lucio had the audacity to keep coming back from the brink of death, making the magician a fool.  
Sneering, Asra sits back down at the table and waits, shrugging off the past like an old coat.

It's oddly nice to be a housewife for a little, and Montag finds himself whistling under his breath as he hangs his clothes, just hoping the now clean socks will dry fast enough.  
He takes the opportunity to cut his nails. Naked feet pat over the wooden floor of the shop now are now scarred and beat from the pedicured ones Asra knew, but he's at least _trying_ to look decent. He does now, at least, compared to before, only faintly smelling of perfumed soap and nothing else.  
"Better?" he asks, still hesitant to sit down.  
“Yes.” Asra notedly refrains from following it with a ‘thank you’, but pats the seat next to him yet again.  
And Lucio sits down by his side, like he's in one of his "I'm a good boy"-phases again, the kind that never last long, with a hint of his old charm that somehow survived everything else.

The cards splay out across the table before the former Count of Vesuvia. Asra doesn’t move to look to the man at his side, out of either resentment or something else.  
“You remember this, right?”  
"How many should I choose?"  
“How complicated is your question?” Asra pauses, finally looking to Lucio. Although he looks brighter, the same general haplessness radiates from him, and it twists Asra’s insides into a knot.

“Pull ten.” He answers before Lucio has a chance to think too hard.  
And the dead man pulls after focusing on his question for a heartbeat. _How do I get out of this mess... or something like that?_  
He selects what feels right without waiting, just taps on them, leaving it to Asra to take them away. Strangely calm, the magician does so, arranging them into the proper cross layout. The cards feel stubborn, still hiding something from him, laughter still echoing in the back of his mind. Yet, they fall into place easy enough. Asra sighs inwardly. With a gaze that would kill Lucio if it could, he gestures over the whole spread.

“This represents you, and the current situation regarding your question.”  
Asra flips each card, one by one, not trusting Lucio to know what each means, or why they are where they are. However, as he does, it occurs to him that, despite their teasing reaction to the magician, they answer the former count sincerely. Blinking for several moments at a loss, he looks back to Lucio, then to the cards, then back to Lucio.

“Well, it’s not a _bad_ reading.”  
"But not one I'll like? That's what I expected."  
Reasonable Lucio is strange. Even with so called ‘good intentions’. It feels wrong, like milk that has only just gone sour.

“You did terrible things.” Asra states as painfully as possible, without anger, but in its place, a long standing resentment. He doesn’t want to proceed, Montag can tell. He moves from one area of the spread to gesture to another. “You’ve had ups and downs.” To another. “You’re currently down, and need to get over yourself. Because...” There, at one part, was Death. That much made sense to the cursed man. “The former you has died, and you need to become someone else to keep living,” and yet again moves his hands up to the last bunch of cards.  
“You need to let go and right the wrongs you have caused. Or else you stay in a limbo of your own making.”  
With that, Asra sits back, crossing his arms over his chest.  
"Wait, wait, wait. How exactly am I supposed to do that? Because that's... quite a lot, or quite a few, depending how you look at it. Because the biggest part was just politics and trying to undo the problems caused by somebody not keeping true to their promises --and resurrecting their ex that now sleeps with my ex-wife, just saying."

A huff. Lucio needed to get that out, like something that clogged him up for years, no matter the cost. To that, nostrils flare, and the magician looks as if he would like nothing more than to throttle the man sitting beside him. Instead, he straightens, and clears his throat.

“You _blackmailed_ me and Muriel, made him your executioner and me your mage plaything, _brought the plague to Vesuvia_, and probably got my parents killed!” Not that Asra knows the truth of it. “But yes, get upset because _our exes are sleeping together_.” With a roll of his eyes, Asra leaves the table, huffing just as haughtily as he storms into the front room. Lucio always knows exactly which buttons of his to press, and regret bubbles up in Asra’s gut instantly.

"Oh c'mon, they're _fine_," he hears from the backroom before Lucio comes after him, "And it's not like I was into being the plague bringer, you know?"  
“What do you know?! You don’t _care_. You never care!” Asra spins on his heel to face him, rushing to get into his face. His index finger pokes hard into the cursed man’s chest. “An entire city dies, and the _only_ person you _ever_ care about is _you_! You ruined so many lives, and for what?!” Words loud in the small shop, spilling out of the magician’s mouth in a torrent long held back. It is then Montag can see the rage in the magician’s face, tears not just welling but tumbling out from his eyes.

"Go ask your fucking ex about your parents, Asra! I know your folks met them, the horned guy told me himself - and he wasn't too happy about it!" Hands raised. He can't really deny the accusations about being an egotistical swine, but he can't find real blame in them either  
This takes the wind out of Asra’s sails, face twisting up in a sort of despair, before hardening again. Grunting, he holds out a hand, and a gust of wind knocks Lucio in the gut, hard, pushing him into the back room.

“You are not going to learn anything,” Asra states angrily, sweeping the curtain aside. He isn’t going to say that his ex has stopped speaking to him months ago, not after the truth of the nature of his former apprentice’s revival came out. His friendship with Nadia no longer exactly existent. He hears the man crush into the table and fall, wind stronger than intended or knees weaker than they used to be, and finds him on the floor, groaning. Yet, the bastard manages a grin, looking up only to say "Make-up sex is probably not an option?"

Stomping back into the room, Asra sneers at the pathetic pile on the floor, only then noticing the odd spots of red growing from under the white shirt. It was gratifying, knowing so many others had hurt the man before he got to him. Asra approaches him, as if to kick him in the ribs. Just when Lucio thinks he will, Asra leans over him again, still radiating years off anger, before he grabs him by the jaw. Shoving a thumb into one of his wounds, his voice grows low. “You told me I could make you pay, didn’t you?” Biting at his mouth in a violent kiss, Asra pins Lucio against the knocked over table.

The former count struggles halfheartedly, torn between finding this not too bad and very painful, depending on which end he thought of, and being touched again somehow overrides his instinct of self-defense. Asra hears him protest against his lips, or at least his tone sounds like it.  
He moves a step right in between Lucio’s legs, letting the kiss soften for the briefest moment before pulling back. Grip still firm on his jaw, Asra forces the sad heap of a man to look at him. Giving one final push into the wound, he takes away his thumb, now smeared with a coating of fresh blood.

“Here’s what you are going to do,” Violet eyes narrow dangerously, “You can stay here, and you will _work_, and you will do as I say until I see fit to release you.”  
Letting the man’s face go with a jerk, Asra pulls out a small plain book, opening it up to a blank page, and wiping the blood onto it. It snaps shut, and falls back into the magician’s pocket. Lucio knows it as a binding, quick, and far more efficient than the sort the magician had concocted while he had been alive.  
“You don’t get to come to my shop, beg me for help, _again_, take my generosity, and throw the past into my face.” Glaring a hole into the old goat’s head, he says “You’ll learn, even if I have to _make_ you.”

"So I'll be a _good boy_? Want me to wear a collar or will that draw the wrong kind of customers?" He licks his lips, a hint of the old fire in his eyes.  
Either he isn't taking Asra seriously or, and this may be the worse option, he has seen to much human cruelty to be truly impressed by anything the magician can throw at him. There's an expression in his face that is new, and feels so very resigned. Asra steps back, smug again, arms crossing over his chest. The air of triumphant is hard to miss. What the cursed man misses, however, is that the spell is a fake. Asra has not performed blood magic in years.

“You should sleep. You look like you could use it.”  
The change in his demeanor is sudden, a storm breaking.  
"I need a shave, if you want me to work here. And other clothes." He sits up, wipes the hair from his eyes.  
The cut on his lip has opened again, coming down as a thin trickle over his chin.  
“You do. Which we will take care of. Later. You’re bleeding all over the place.”  
"Oh, I'm sorry that you... _nevermind_. You're right. I am." Again, he licks his lips leaving the red sheen of arterial blood like smeared lipstick.  
“I mean, I’m surprised that you are given that all your blood is going-“ The magician points down, at Lucio’s crotch. Someone is at half mast from the rough housing. The disgraced count is certainly a sight.

"The last _affectionate gesture_ I got from someone attractive was a while ago, Asra." He shrugs, still not ashamed of what he's presenting. Enough smarm to outlive his physical form, no matter how many times he loses it. "Remember Jules back in the day, claiming I'll still be hard as a rock when I die of blood loss?"  
The magician snorts a laugh.  
“Yes,” Asra admits, before coming to pause on the 'attractive' part. Ignoring it, he gently kicks at Lucio’s leg. “Are you going to sit there forever or do I need to help carry you up?”  
"While I like the thought of explaining this to your neighbors--" He struggles to get up, but manages to stand. Still a warrior somewhere deep down, "--I'll manage somehow. Upstairs, you say?"  
Asra nods.

“Just... take the bed for now.” Words hesitant, obviously questioning themselves. The shop has only ever had one bed, as everyone has liked to tease him about.  
“I’ll run out and grab you something to wear.” Picking up the table to right it, he tries not to look at the man. Considers to himself that he needs to never take in any more strays in again.  
"Think I lost some weight. Mainly muscle, probably." That seems to sadden him more than anything, but eating scraps makes it hard to maintain the mass he liked to have. "Your bed? You sure?" he then adds as the words sink in.  
“There's only one, so yes.”  
Asra still doesn’t look at him, bending down and gesturing. His hands open, palms facing the floor curl into a fist. His cards flutter back toward his hands from where they were scattered about during the scuffle.  
He doesn’t want to think about the connotations, or how big of a bluff he is making just to get Lucio to shut up, he just doesn’t want to think.  
"'kay..."

Later, when Asra comes home, he finds Lucio asleep, but not in his bed. He has made a makeshift camp in the storage room, two old carpets, a rolled up towel as a pillow and one of Muriel's old shawls as a blanket. Maybe he caught the hesitation in Asra's command, or maybe he had a vague idea of how many people had sex in this bed that were not him and found that unhygienic.  
He has at least tried to bring order back into the storeroom, even though resetting the room with just one arm must have been not the easiest task. It's not like before, but at least somebody _tried_.  
Sighing, he takes the folded stack of clothes he had bought for the man and places them next to his head. Relief tangible, the magician finds himself almost glad as he crawls into bed. He managed to leave Lucio in the shop and nothing terrible happened. He left the shop with Lucio and nothing terrible happened. Doesn’t mean it won’t. Doesn’t mean this isn’t all still an elaborate scheme to gain his trust for some sort of revenge. But the cards seem right, and they certainly aren’t saying else anything to Asra at the moment.  
As he nods off, the magician tries not to let his anxiety over his gambit get to him. Worry threatens to overwhelm the magician, should Lucio call his bluff, and finally take revenge.


	2. Chapter 2

Asra’s dreams are strange that night, but free from Lucio. Something vague about his parents, something _ important _, but it runs like water through his fingers as he wakes.

Downstairs, someone is working, faint little noises that sound like things being chopped. The smell of fresh coffee tickles the magician's nose, the sound of someone's whistling just reaches his ears. No, not Muriel. He wouldn't whistle. It sounds like a soldier's song, a march, but he doesn't know the lyrics, and why should he?

He sits up with a start, remembering his new guest’s presence. Gathering up something respectable to wear in a rush, Asra hops downstairs. He finds Lucio in the kitchen, whistling the little tune. The smell of coffee here is even stronger than before, but that it is. Nothing on fire, and nothing stolen. Somehow, it feels like a disappointment to all the worst expectations the magician had cultivated during the night.

"Making breakfast," the dead Count announces. "Don't look at me like that, I can cook. Just haven’t done it for a few years. Grab yourself a cup."  
He doesn't even turn around to catch Asra's expression of disbelief, eyes wide and mouth agape, only slowly returning to normal. It is, hands down, the strangest thing of all the strange things he has seen in the shop. Slipping back into a casual demeanor, he hesitantly gets a cup of coffee. Tries it. It hits his tongue somewhat pungent, too much powder or too dark of a roast.

“It’s strong.”

"What’s the use of weak coffee? If it doesn't get you through a long night’s watch, you can just have water."

Lucio remembers when he last really cooked, and that was back in mercenary times, when he still had two hands, when his men still liked him, and understands only now, painfully so, how much of another life that had been.

Asra watches him carefully, studiously. The way Lucio works while missing an arm is quite impressive, and it isn’t anything like he remembers the way the man held himself while he was barely alive and in the palace. It must have taken him a while to find those kinds of workarounds, fixing things between things because he can't hold them anymore, or maybe it's just something you learn from being a mercenary, a profession where losing limbs is daily business.

The magician leans against the wall, noting that the blond again wears some of his new clothes. For now, Lucio has foregone to put on the tunic Asra brought him, instead opting for the pants and the loose linen shirt, both slightly too large on him. He has rolled up both sleeves to have them out of the way.  
_Lost muscle?_ Not really, not compared to the magician's memory of him, but then, that's the memory of a man ridden with heavy illness.

"Help me here, will you?" He’s making gruel and a savory topping from veggies that are still around, chopped up loosely and thrown in a pan to fry, two eggs cracked over it. "Should be done in a sec."

Asra can’t lie right now, not even to himself. Between the dead man’s physique and competence, no longer burdened with the wear of an encroaching death, Lucio is considerably _ attractive _. Instantly furious at the realization, he pushes the thought aside. 

“What do you need?” He hides the horrible thought and follows Lucio’s vague motions with the stump. Grabs bowls, and pulls away some of superfluous items for easier access, and, working together, food is finished soon enough. 

"Hope you don't mind savoury this early."

It's a bit late to ask that now, but at least it does smell tasty enough. Shrugging, the magician watches him finish, perfectly timing the eggs. Asra wants to snap back at him, some sort of jab at his attentiveness, but is honestly too tired. And this is... nice? He can’t remember the last time someone made breakfast for him, not since--  
The only thing to get knocked over does, a fork, and it’s the magician’s fault. Sighing, he bends to pick it up, hoping it doesn’t shatter the thin layer of calm that had settled into the room.

"Cooking makes me sentimental. Weird. Even if it's on a stove and not somewhere out in the field on a fire, but then, that probably would be hard. Glad your little flame worked with me here." A somewhat joyful crackle at the compliment from inside the iron hull. "We probably need to talk about what you expect me to do in here sooner than later, and if you expect me to call you anything but your name."

The magician has been in full observation mode, and doesn’t catch what the dead man has said at first. And when he does, he scoffs again.  
Asra hates being called ’_ Master’ _. Always has, always will, and he won’t have another one force that title upon him. He shrugs. “Boss.” Then he folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall. It’s easier to keep distance this way.

"Boss," Lucio repeats. Flashes a grin. "Can deal with that. _Master_ would have been a problem. Was Jules into that too when he was with you? Nothing against roleplaying, but he took it a bit too far."

In a rare moment, Asra blushes.

“It wasn’t Ilya,” He sputters, uncrossing his arms. Gulps. Shakes his head then fast. “And it wasn’t _ roleplaying _ , I was _ teaching _.” He pauses again. That sounds no better. “I hated being called that.” 

The dead man is fast enough on the uptake, at least that. "And you didn't like being called _master_ back then? Probably explains why they ended up with Noddy. Girl has that _mistress_ thing down in her blood. One of many reasons we didn't get along in the long term."

As much as Asra is dying to bite back, hating every time Lucio brings up their exes, trying to rub salt into some wound, the magician only rolls his eyes. Then, he smirks, looking back to the dead man. “That’s funny, because Nadi’s said differently about you.”

"I liked it when she was a bit mean to me," Lucio shrugs. "But when she started taking the whole worshipping-thing too serious, I was out. Wasn't fun anymore, but work, and I wasn't even getting paid for it. You know how she is."

The magician refuses to say anything to that, not wanting to extend the conversation back to the subject of his former apprentice. The hapless doctor, fine, he is his own trouble, but it was a place and a time. “Can I grab a bowl?”

"That's why I made it, believe it or not. Least I can do, _ boss _ ." His grin is still the old one, even below the beard and the split lip. It ruffles Asra’s fur just so. Hiding that and his relief, he moves to help himself and his newest, if only, _ employee _ . Stepping back, he tries some. It’s not half bad. It’s actually _ good _? Damn. An approving hum is all he’s willing to give for now.

"Question remains: What you want me to do around here? I mean, while I can honestly say the stuff you do _works_, I'm not sure I can _sell_ it too well. ‘Can try, of course." Lucio places his own bowl on the table and sits down to eat.

“You don’t have to sell much. Most people come knowing what they want. Or a reading, which I’ll take care of.” The magician sits down next to him, still avoidant. 

“Basically, just watch the shop, or run to get some items for me.... It’s not like you’ll run into trouble being out or anything.” Asra pauses, staring at the dead man. “-Don’t go looking for trouble.”

"Fighting is no fun with just one hand to lead the sword." Regret in his voice, while the empty spoon dances through the air. "Might have gone back to my old job otherwise."

Lucio playfully jabs at the air. Exhaling slowly in noticeable exasperation, the magician looks back to his meal. 

“Otherwise, I just need you to organize things. Keep the shop clean.” He shrugs. “Let me know if something comes up while I’m out.” He fails to mention how often that is, or that his familiar would be their point of contact. In fact, he hasn’t seen Faust because she is out and about in the woods, visiting Muriel. He wonders if she’ll remember the dead man, and already can imagine her distaste if she does.

"You're still out a lot?" Lucio interrupts his thoughts.

“Not as often, but sometimes.”

"Anyone coming along I should know about? Important customers, current lovers, anyone getting ‘special treatment’?" He says it so casually.

Shooting him a long stare, Asra looks as if he is about to say _ no _. Hesitates then.

“Ilya gets a 10% discount.... _If_ he buys anything. Don’t count on it. Portia, Nadia’s assistant. She gets 20% off of material, 40% off readings.” He looks away, down at the floor. “Muriel has a key. If he shows up... just leave. Step out for a walk. Something.”

"Portia, Portia... I think I remember her? Annoying chubby redhead, unhealthily big mouth, sister to Jules? Think we ran into each other during the Masquerade.”

Scoffing, Asra makes a face at Lucio. She is a horrible gossip, that much is true, but he won’t admit that to the goat.

"And she's Noddy's assistant now? Match made in heaven. And the big guy is still around? Doing horrible, as always?" A subtle shift in his position and his tone suggests he may be feeling guilty, just the tiniest bit.

Asra stiffens, and proceeds to finish his bowl in silence. Doesn’t feel dressed enough without his vest and usual layers of amulets sewn into it, not for this topic, not even under the protection of the shop. Walking to the sink, facing away from the dead man, he grimaces. Begins to wash his dish, angrily. It would be so easy to say something bitter, ignite old fires, but he didn’t want to tempt Lucio to push back. Not after the day before.

“I’m going to get changed.” He says after, shaking the water off from his hands.

"Hey, boss? May I say one thing about the big guy?" He's polite enough to ask.

“What?” Asra replies sharply, sharper than he should anyway.

"I definitely didn't make things better, but he was broken before. Seen guys like him in the war. Better to give them someone to hate than to let their feelings run free.” A pause. “... Seriously, think I wouldn't have had other ways to get you to work for me?"

The magician shoots him a scowl before walking out of the room.

_ Well, that could have gone worse. _

Montag expected a black eye, not just a mean look. Boy needs to learn to allow his hate to be useful for something instead of just eating it up in exchange for pettiness. The Count has always had a soft spot for him, even if it wasn't the healthiest one. Something about the disgust in those violet eyes scratches the same itch that Noddy’s did back in the day.

Still, he wonders if getting rid of those two from the get go would have been easier. _ Well, maybe, but everybody would have been dead of the Plague then. Not much to rule over. _

Clean up, make things neat and tidy until the boss comes back. That he can do. For a few minutes more, he stays seated and drinks his coffee. This is an unexpected fortune that probably won't last long. Good things never do.

Meanwhile, Asra is bereft. Sitting on his bed, leaning on his hands, staring at the floor. And he _ hates _. He hates Lucio so much, always has. Hates his selfishness (breakfast was a pleasant surprise). Hates his pompousness (he’s got no audience anymore). Hates the control he had over everything (which is, admittedly, now gone). Hates how easily he can stir things up, knows every button to press, knows how to get under Asra’s skin.  
If there is anyone that knows Muriel, it is Asra. They met hating Lucio together. They hadn’t parted since... well, they had. But Muriel was always there for him, always had his back, even when he was being an idiot crying under a tree stuck at the palace while the rest of the city was dying. They had learned the intricacies of magic together. So, what does Lucio know about him and his closest friend, anyway?

The magician rages, sitting still on the bed, ignoring the way his heart aches. This all still seems a ploy to him, some joke after all is said and done with Nadia and his former love. _ Whose shop he still keeps _.

He lies back down, covering his face with a pillow, suffocating a sob. _ What has he done to deserve this?  
_Asra rages, because he feels like he’s let himself down. For wanting to give in again, to settle back into that place of pity for the dead man. It cannot, may not be.

This is taking too long, isn’t it? The goat will notice something’s wrong, and grin his stupid triumphant grin, and Asra will just fall apart and do something stupid, and…  
He _wants _to hate Lucio, he _does_ hate Lucio, but the man down there doesn’t quite feel like him, and it’s so utterly annoying that he screams into the pillow he’s hiding under. _Just not fair.  
_Abruptly, he sits up. He won’t do anyone the favor to show weakness because of that creature now, not now and not ever. If this is a test, he’ll master it.

He puts on his clothes like a knight his armor, checks his face for tears, and returns back downstairs.

The dead man is on his knees again, scrubbing the floor in the shop. Admittedly, the floor was in need of a good scrubbing, but seeing Lucio like this is strange. It would be easy to kick him in the ribs now, make him fall down and take his hate out on him, and maybe he'd just _ allow it _. Or maybe he is just seeing things. Mind playing tricks, or the Magician playing tricks, trying to teach him a lesson, reminding him of all the little failures he still needs to work on his path to wisdom, but the breakfast tasted quite real, and the admittedly still quite nice ass swaying over there seems quite real too.  
It has him stalling, staring for too long at the sight. Again, he wonders what would happen if the dead man were to discover that his threat is a lie. There is nothing binding him here. Would he stay? Kill Asra in his sleep? The whole thing seems like an increasingly bad idea, and yet... The floor looks good.

It is then by some miracle that a customer enters the shop. For a terse second, they pause to watch as a pregnant housewife from town walks in, ecstatic that the shop seems to actually be open, and it’s proprietor present. Asra smiles and greets her, waiting for her to notice the former Count Lucio scrubbing the floor. She casts a quick glance at the man, only making a note not to step on the floor where it’s wet. That is all.  
No recognition, nothing beside the passive avoidance most servants earn.

She wants something to ease the birth, and a reading, of course a reading, setting a first future for the unborn, and Lucio keeps his head down and works his brush, a simple servant, too low to be even worth being seen.  
Asra attends to her, tries to give her his complete attention. The right teas, a good reading. The reading _is_ a good one, as good as one can be, more for the mother than anything else. The whole while, he waits for some reveal, some realization of Lucio’s presence. Nothing comes. And when he sees her off, there is one small comment she makes, asking about the ‘other’ magician, and when they might be back, and to give them her regards. Asra’s face nearly twitches, his smile stretching a bit too much as he bids her goodbye.

His new assistant has disappeared into the back and left only clean wood. Was it always this color?

"Boss? Can I have some coin?" Lucio asks soon as the door closes behind her.

“Hm?” The magician is taken out of a sort of reverie.

"I wanna go and get some oil for the wood in here. It's a bit overdue."

Maybe he has learned a trick or two from the servants in the palace that kept the place neat, and as he comes outside in his simple secondhand tunic over the whitish shirt, he looks like a stranger. The beard helps, and so does the longer hair, and if Asra squints…

“Oh, sure.” It does help, he thinks. He expects that. What he doesn’t expect, as he hands over a coin purse to the dead man, is his sudden fear of Lucio not returning.

"Anything else you want me to bring back?" Lucio's hand remains in contact with his a little too long for it to be unintentional.

“Uh...” The magician looks away, as if thinking about what to ask for. Not as if he’s flustered like he is. “If you don’t mind going down to the market, more vegetables... Peppers, in particular.” Sly, he looks back to the dead goat. “You _do_ know how to tell them apart, don’t you?” He smiles.

"If they're spices or veggies, you mean?"

“Get me one of the red ones, an orange one, and two of the light green ones, okay?” A testing look, before a shrug. “And whatever else you want, I don’t need change.” This feels strange.

"Will do, boss. Do you have a bag for me, or a backpack?" A practical thinker, after all. He had a life before Vesuvia, of course he had, but it is strange to witness it.

With a nod, Asra gives him a shoulder bag, helping to hang it over his shoulders so that the pouch side is by his hand. This still feels weird. A sort of let down by the wholesomeness of the moment.

"You gonna be here for dinner?"

Somehow, Asra briefly expects a kiss on the cheek as the dead man turns to leave. Lucio looks over his shoulder and grins instead. "You look like you've seen a ghost again."


	3. Chapter 3

The questioning of his ability to tell peppers apart still baffles Montag on his way to the market. What does the magician think he is? A barbarian? Well, yeah, and he does look good in furs, but peppers and peppers are two very different things, or more than two very different things, depending on where you are, and his time on the road has told him about the different degrees of heat.

While scrubbing floors he came to the strange realization he actually _enjoys_ the situation. While it's quite complicated, it's also quite easy, and there are tasks at hand he can focus on - getting that mess of a shop nice and clean, for example, what impression shall customers get, you're not impressing anyone with that, Asra - without having to do politics or trying not to be murdered or killed, and he spends a little more than strictly necessary on wood care. Feels luxurious about it, because it's such an unnecessary expense with money that could be used for _food_, and continues on to the market. He knows his way around, after all, this is his city, but the feeling to be just one of many faces on her streets is new.

While back in the market, as he had been just the day before, under vastly different circumstances, he makes his way leisurely through the stalls. This too is new, taking his time with purpose. He will tell Asra that he was trying to determine which was the best better to bring back, when really what he wants is to explore. No one is looking at him. No one pays him any mind, really. If anything, they are too busy hurrying around him with their own business, bags of fruits and breads in hand. Thinking on so many of his servants doing this exact thing, he is struck with an old envy. Freedom from choice. Just as his mind turns to old habits, his eyes land on a familiar form, always the odd silhouette set against the rest of a crowd. _ Jules_.

The doctor doesn’t see him, too busy chatting with some shopkeep with his arms full of…. Montag wants to say persimmons? He doesn’t know for sure, but it sounds right.

Just as Julian makes the man burst into laughter, he double takes at the former Count, and for an instant, he thinks maybe that finally somebody else does remember him. Excusing himself, Julian approaches. His face is bright.

“Why, hello again!” Devorak smiles. _ No. He doesn’t. _

"Persimmons?" Montag points. "Was that what they were called?" and he feels a blush rising, because Jules' smile is still the same it was all those years ago when they both were so young, and this time his eye is not clouded by pity. Smiles back then.

A curious quirk of a brow, and the doctor again double takes, looking back to the fruit vendor. Lets out a slight laugh before turning back to the man before him.

“Plum-dates, a close cousin of persimmons! They hail from Prakra, actually. And they’re in season.” Julian replies, before giving the blond a once over. “You were here yesterday, weren’t you?” It’s obvious he means ‘you look different from yesterday, this is an improvement’.

A nod for an answer, and his eyes shyly cast down. Not a story for now, with so many ears to listen in. "Prakra? That's quite a far-traveled fruit then. You've ever been there?” He knows the answer, but also that Jules loves to tell stories.

“I have!” the redhead answers excitedly enough to gauge a few amused looks from passersby. “I studied there to become a doctor! Also, I’m a doctor.” Lively now for a fresh audience, Jules shifts his weight, arms flapping about like an excited bird. “It was from there I traveled the seas aboard a ship teaming with nefarious pirates!” Catching himself about to air swashbuckle, he looks to Lucio, totally unaware that he is speaking to someone whose arm he himself amputated during that time.

"A pirate and a doctor? What an unusual combination. Even though the sea air is probably good for your lungs." He couldn't hide his grin if he wanted to. A fresh Jules, unblemished by what had been. _ Not sharing his own fate anymore. _

"Say, if you got time, can I invite you for a cuppa and a few stories?" _ Make out afterwards. I'm fresh and clean, and you look so good on your knees. _

“You live somewhere?” Julian blurts out, before clearing his throat. “Not that I didn’t think you did, I just-- haven’t seen you around before.” He smooths it over, and makes it a point to look excited about it, obviously a little guilty for assuming otherwise. “Where are you living?”

A slightly pained grin. "I was thinking somewhere on the market, _ doctor _, unless you are specialized in house visitations." The shift from pained to dirty is subtle, and the glint in the doctor’s eye that meets it is knowing.

"And I haven't been in town for a while. Fallen on hard times." He shrugs. "It happens. Life isn't kind, except for some who fight that fact." A short look that is far too knowing for someone he just met. Devorak’s expression suddenly changes, sweeping from flirtatious to nearly sullen, back before resuming a charming grin. He gently claps the man on his shoulder. 

“Too true.” A pause, before he straightens. “Give me a time and a place, and I will be there.”

"Now. That tea-seller over there?" He points. "Never liked waiting, and the pastries look good."

The doctor looks taken slightly aback, blinking a few times. Just as Montag thinks he is about to refuse, Jules shoots him a wide grin. 

“Lead the way!”

Montag does, and orders without asking, because he knows what Julian likes, still knows it, black and strong and with cream and some salt, and he orders the same for him, and two of those almond things, thank you very much. There's still enough coin left to get more groceries, Asra has been generous enough and given him a little allowance, _To get myself some candy, cause I'm a good boy... Ha._ Julian is impressed, he can tell by the look on his face as he is given his tea.

“This is my favorite, actually.” There is something in his tone, both a pleased curiosity and a sultry undertone. It’s only then he notices, close up, the forgotten Count’s missing arm. Says nothing, out of politeness of course, not after his painful assumption earlier, but is noticeably transfixed. Clearly, he is fascinated.

"You seemed the type for it. Shall we sit over there, so you can take a break from your important business?" He nods towards a little stairway of one of the older houses, the belonging door overgrown by ivy. A nice place to sit and watch the world go by.

“We shall.” And so they make their way over to the stairwell, out of the hustle and bustle of the city proper. Devorak is still taken aback, or maybe this is his way of expressing interest. Sipping his tea, he sighs contentedly to himself, before turning to his new companion.

“I deeply apologize about yesterday.” He is blushing, looking straight into his cup.

"I wanted to thank you for it. Meant the only meal of the day for me, and I don't expect the kindness of beautiful strangers. Only happens in stories." Montag sits the pastry down on his knees. Takes a sip of his tea. _ Of course, it helps knowing the right people. _

The blush subtly grows to the doctor’s ears and neck, before he clears his throat. He sips his tea. 

“You seem to be doing better for yourself today.” Julian holds up his cup, smiling a charming smile.

"It seems I was in luck for once. A job appeared out of nowhere, even if I'm not really the right man for it, but I'll try my best. The boss was kind enough to put me in better clothes." A happy-cat-blink with both eyes. "Seems meeting you gave me a lucky streak."

“That’s wonderful! And I would say your boss has good taste. Where are you working?”

"It's... a man of science won’t know it, probably. It dabbles in herbs and magic items and fortune telling." A slightly embarrassed grin over his tea. "Probably the last place I expected to find work and a roof over my head."

“The magic shop?” The doctor chimes in, surprised. “I know it. You were hired to work at the magic shop?” Julian repeats.

"Is that... such an unusual thing?"

“I just didn’t think Asra needed the help.” Julian says more to himself than to his companion.

"I don't think he really needs it either, but it seems easier for him to show kindness in his way. So you... know him well?"

“I do.” The words fall a little flat, eye looking askance. It doesn’t seem like he can conceive of Asra showing kindness at all, let alone to a stranger. Julian looks as if he wants to say more, but hides it into his tea.

“You aren’t a …. magician, are you?” The doctor asks nervously.

"Of course I am, how else do you think I made my arm disappear?" The dead man laughs at his own bitter joke. A laugh also erupts from the doctor, and he nearly spills his tea. After, he falls quickly quiet as he realizes the actual severity of the joke.

“If I can ask, how did you lose it?”

"Don't quite remember what hit me back then." Montag shrugs. He really does not, the heat of battle and enemy fire drew his attention elsewhere. "Was just a minor skirmish, we thought it was, but then things got out of hand, and then there's a loud bang, and I want to lift my arm to shield my face, and nothing comes up, and I'm like ‘_ Oh’ _ . Must have gone looking for it then, but didn't stay on my feet for long. Blood loss, you probably know the drill. They had to amputate some more to properly close the wound." _ It's a true story, Jules. Remember? _

Growing pensive, the doctor nods solemnly. 

“I operated on a man once, who lost his arm. Same way. Same side. Everything. They did probably have to take off more to save the rest of you, if that’s of any consolation.” Looking off, Julian sips his tea briefly. He looks guilty.

"Been to the war then, Doc?" He puts aside his cup, closing his hand around Julian's. _You know what, Jules? Ego te absolvo. Just like that. You can thank me later._

“Something like it, yes.” His response is the quietest he has been. Compared to the impassive snottiness of Asra, Julian was an outright open book of emotions.

"You regret what you had to do?"

“Yes.” The answer is quick, and at that, the doctor gives his hand a squeeze in return.

His new friend becomes silent for a long moment then. Swallows hard. "But you never had the chance to tell him? Ask if he blames you?" Monty isn't quite sure when that particular frog made its way into his throat, but it's there, and it's making him croak.

“Oh, he blamed me.” Julian practically laughs, however a sad sound. Makes a face, and smiles to himself. “Said it a thousand times, and sometimes worse.”

"For me, it felt like my life ending when I realized what had happened. Being dead would somehow have been better, but I really didn't want to die either. No good way of getting out of it."

The hand remains where it is. Jules looks straight into Monty’s eyes, a deep, profound look that lasts for several moments. Again, he thinks that maybe the doctor does recognize him, a part of the man somewhere in there that does see him for who he is. The look is pleading, desperate, if only for a moment. Then, Julian lets go of his hand, a bright, cheerful, yet fake, smile stretches over his lips. 

“But you didn’t want to sit here on this beautiful day and talk about my troubles, did you?” He straightens. He holds up his tea to toast. “To good luck and to new days.” This, at least, is sincere.

_I wouldn't mind talking about your troubles. And mine, too. All the things I never said aloud, because I couldn't._ The thought is none he ever had, _Thanks, mother_, but then he bares his teeth and raises his cup. "It can only go uphill from here. To you, doctor, my new lucky charm." Again, a blush stains pale cheeks.

“I’m sure Asra is wondering where you might be, would you like for me to walk you back to the shop?”

"I need to get a few more veggies before that, but if you have nothing on your schedule... sure. I'd love that." A little twitch of his brow that doesn't quite turn into a wiggle. Not yet. "Maybe want to stay for lunch, so you don't make the way for nothing?"

Although Devorak brightens considerably at the offer, the expression on his face is questionable.

“Is Asra around, or off on one of his adventures?” It’s hard to tell if he asks because he wants the magician around or not.

"You probably know his habits better than I do. Bad thing if he wasn't there?" _ You were all in this together. Are you still? _

“Oh, no. Not at all.” A sly grin crosses his face before it fades. “He’s just not always in the mood to see me, is all.” Julian quickly adds, “Because I’m not really one for magic, you see,” as if that covers up something more suggestive.

"You're enchanting enough as things are already." _Yup, delivery dry enough not to be too cheesy._ "Got an opinion about getting some wine with the food during the day? Probably improves the blood flow or something."

The doctor gives him an interesting expression, one that doesn’t quite know what to make of his new friend. Like he was oddly reminded of someone. Looks as if he is about to speak. Instead of responding, he finishes his tea.

"Ah, you'd advise against it, I see. And it is strange enough to be invited by some dashing stranger whose name you don't even know." He jumps up and gives a showily bow that would have been so much more impressive with his cape and his uniform. Blushes as he realizes it. "Call me Monty, if you please."

The doctor studies the man hard, humming in thought, as if trying to figure something out.

“You remind me of someone.” He states with conviction, nodding. “You might not believe me, but he used to be the Count of Vesuvia.” And the doctor points to the man’s lack of arm. “That was the man whose arm I amputated.” Pursing his lips briefly, Julian tilts his head curiously. “He’s gone now, though.” The look on his face becomes unreadable.

"Do I look like a Count to you?" The stranger laughs. "A magician and a count. I'll give you one more chance at my profession, if you want one." He stretches out his hand, offering to pull the doctor up. "You got a name, Doc?"

And the doctor was laughing again, graciously accepting the offered hand.

“It’s Julian, Devorak.” Upon standing, he moves to shake Monty’s hand.

"Julian," _ damn, that was hard _. "Got it!"

Monty drags him along, still not letting him go. Makes him help carrying things, happy to get pumpkin and melon and some long leafy greens neither of them remembers the name of, but they come from Prakra and would make an excellent dessert with some sweet rice, and somehow a bottle of wine ends up in Devorak's arms, and he's not quite sure if he paid for it or was gifted it by one of the sellers.

His new friend seems so utterly _delighted_ by his company, smiling and chatting away, asking about Prakra and how it was back then.

The whole thing is a whirlwind, and Julian lets himself be dragged along into it. The strange man is so full of life, and vitality, nothing like he had seen him be the day before, and the doctor has to consider that gainful employment and a night sleeping somewhere with a roof really did have that drastic of an effect on one’s health. After sharing happier stories of his travels, recommendations for food, and some of which he can make because he know which peppers Asra meant. Before he knows, they are coming up before the front door of magic shop. For some reason, Julian appears to be nervous, shifting from one foot to another, adjusting the whole pumpkin in his hands. Again, looks as if he wants to speak, but thinks better of it.

"Want me to see if the boss is here first?”

It takes longer than it should for him to consider it, before he tentatively nods.

“Might be for the best.”

Monty sneaks through the front door like a thief in the night, and Julian hears him announce his presence inside, but getting no answer.

"C'mon in, Julian. It'll be only me, I fear."

He finds him in the kitchen, already unpacking the things he bought. It's amazing how much he managed to stuff into his bag, but then, it might be Asra's bag, so there might as well be some little pocket dimension in there.

The shop is still the same is always, even though the smell is... different. Some of the dust, the age, the mystery that was probably mold is gone. Has somebody started to properly clean in here? He soon joins Monty, oddly relieved. Something about the shop always left him feeling uneasy, out of his depth. Now, looking at how Monty moved before him, definitely still figuring out where everything went in the room, but still enthusiastically putting things away, all he could feel was a sense of… calm. It was lovely.

As opposed to the new hire, the doctor knows where everything goes, so he helps make the process go that much faster. As soon as his finishes, he notes that the man has already moved on to food prep.

“So, I take it you were a cook somewhere once before?” Julian, grinning charmingly, leans and peeks over Monty’s shoulder.

"I used to help the women a lot back when I was a kid." _Mother made me, so I could be at least a bit useful when I wasn't... couldn't be out with the others to train._ "And kept on cooking when I got older. Someone had to, and it was...nice?" A twirl of the knife before he keeps on chopping.

“So _that’s_ why he hired you.” Julian laughs to himself, before turning around. He faces the table, and notices first how clean the floors are, yet again, and secondly… that the table is slightly askew. Shrugging it off as one of the many strange things about the shop and it’s proprietor, he considers.

“Did _you_ clean the shop?” Asra would never, adverse to things not clearly tied to the arcane somehow or another.

"’Thought not getting stuck on the floor might be something the customers might like. Make them return more often, instead of not allowing them to leave." He's fast with the knife, even without holding the zucchini down. It must have been sharpened properly. "Want to open the bottle?”

The doctor does so, easily, He knows where the glasses are, and he pours two. Setting one down for Monty, he breaths a relieved sigh.

"Why, what did you think?" The dead man puts down the knife and comes over to drink. No clinking of glasses this time, just appetite for red wine.

The doctor blinked several times, and shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve never known Asra to be so… pragmatic, when it comes to running the shop.” Gaze falling to Monty, Julian again studies his new friend carefully. The man stands there, competent and compelling. Brows raise, and he bites his lip. “You’ve been away for the past few years, you said?”

That earns him a nod. "Found it wise to be places the Plague was not, only to come back to find it gone. Never shied away from a war, but a death you can't escape... scared me."

Even just at the mention of the Red Death, the doctor stiffens. He finally takes a long sip of wine, and perks up. “This was an excellent choice.” He tries a smile. “Well, it’s a good thing you missed it.”

"Was wherever people are, which led to me living in the woods for a while, but honestly, being among the trees for too long just isn't for me. I'm a man of the people, after all." His new friend laughs. "Can you chop this for me?"  
As Julian borders on reverie, the ask pleasantly brings him back to the present.  
“Of course.” Coming to stand close behind the man, the doctor brushes up beside him. With two hands, he is just about as good as the man with his one. It’s just now starting to grow darker outside, giving the room a dusky feel. “Is that what brought you back? Missing people?”  
"People and proper baths and wine. Mainly people. When I was trying to talk with a damn squirrel and only noticed after a while, I knew that death would be better then this, and... Vesuvia still feels like home. Silly, isn't it?"  
He chuckles, hand coming to rest on Julian's arm, a brief gesture of him missing home, or something else.  
“Not at all.” Julian says warmly, before finishing up the chopping. He doesn’t move, however, letting Monty’s touch linger. He catches his gaze yet again. “Out of all of the places I’ve travelled, Vesuvia has felt the most like home to me.”  
"You've been to many places, Julian? More than Prakra?"

_ I still want to kiss you, Jules. My pretty little pet. Your slender body mingled so well with those of the hounds, being as white as their fur. _

“I was born in Nevivon, actually, along with my younger sister. I left for Prakra to learn medicine,” He breaks to sip his wine. It steels him somewhat. “After which I became a combat medic.” Julian is taking his time, but progressively leans in towards the man. Gently, he places a hand on his new companion’s blunted arm, a reference to their earlier conversation. “After pirates, and… the Plague.” At that, he gives his arm a light squeeze, not unlike the way he held his hand earlier. A shudder runs through Montag. It's the first time in so many years that somebody else touched him _ there _ . Even when they took of his alchemical arm on Nadia's orders, it was more a thing of magic than physical, and before that...  
"Pirates? Ha, I can imagine you swashbuckling just fine! You ever toyed with the thought of jumping on the other ship with your knife between your teeth like they do on stage?"  
“Who is to say I didn’t?” The doctor laughs, but still says in place.   
"Lack of scars in your face says it.”

A long moment, Julian looks down to the vegetables. “Do you need any more help?”  
‘The onions, if you like. They're an old enemy, and I can start heating the pan. Was thinking something pumpkin-based with bread? Something that just gets better the longer it sits, so everyone can enjoy it."  
Blushing, the doctor nods and pulls over an onion. Before he begins chopping, he pauses. “How did you meet Asra?”  
"I came to ask for help. Was a little..." He sighs. "A little at the end of my wits yesterday. You were the first kind face in a whole while, and it felt like you'd be the last one." A little _whump_ as the fire in the stove comes to life.  
"It felt like magic might be worth a try, if everything else failed, you know?"

The doctor considers, before beginning to chop the onions.  
“No, not really. I’ve never had the best of luck with magic.”  
"But you tried?" Some oil into the pan, and wait until it sizzles, then the carrots. Fry them a good while, then add the onions.  
“Hmm… It’s not for lack of trying. It’s more…” After passing the man the onions, he returns to his glass of wine. “… Less than positive experiences.”  
"What happened?" _I know most of it. Is it a test?_ It may be.  
“Well,” With a cheeky grin, he takes a drink of wine. “Long story short, Asra and I used to be involved, more or less.” With a rather nervous laugh, he takes another, longer, drink of wine.  
"But that didn't go so well?"  
Still wearing a smile, he looks down. “Ultimately, it did. I think. It helps when the Plague ends and you don’t think you’re about to die at any moment.”  
"Glad to hear." _ Enemy of my enemy is my friend. Works like a treat every time. And whom to thank for it? Right, this boy. _

Monty's stirring the pan patiently. Low heat and time is the key to get them to caramelize nice and evenly.

They sit in a peaceful silence for a few moments, while the food cooks.

“Did Asra mention that he would be going out today?” Again, he questions, as if mentioning the magician would make him appear.  
"He didn't, but I doubt he trusts me enough to leave me alone for longer periods of time yet." _Time. Thyme. Yeah. Good idea._ A glass of wine is poured into the pan, and he adds some green needles from one of the plants on the windowsill, and lets things boil just a little bit longer before taking the whole thing from the heat.  
Julian smiles at the man’s back, and starts setting the table without being prompted.

Meanwhile, Monty has started to collect the rest in a pot and sets it on the stove. Adds water, and a collection of dried herbs from a glass vial.  
"Take your time, Doc, this will take a while longer. You okay with meat, despite your profession?"  
Which is good, as the man doesn’t seem to know if he should be setting two places or three, holding utensils awkwardly in hand. “Absolutely.”  
"There's some spicy sausage hanging on the wall over there. Cut some of it into bite sized-pieces." A nod into the direction.  
Just as Julian moves to put down the extra set of utensils to pick up the sausage, the back door handle jiggles. Freezing, the doctor watches as the door opens, and Asra the Magician enters the room.

“Ilya?” He asks, as his familiar curls out from her hiding place in his vest. Violet eyes wide, he looks between the blond continuing to cook and the doctor, still frozen in place.  
“ _ Dinner?_” Faust chimes innocently.

"Hey boss!" he's greeted, innocently enough too. "Met the kind doctor who saved my ass yesterday. Well, I guess there's no need to introduce you. Do you mind if he stays for lunch?"  
Asra’s mouth falls into a thin line, his expression unreadable. Julian waves. For some reason, he is behaving more nervously than Monty.  
“Hello! I ran into your Monty here at the market, yesterday. I hope that it’s alright.” He already moves to pour the magician a glass of wine. Asra continues to stare between them, inhaling deeply. Clearly, Julian believes any irritation that he is expressing is due to his presence.

“Monty?” The question is drawn out, Asra blinks. Lucio doesn’t seem affected at all. Subtly, he shoots the man a pointed glare. “Yes, that’s fine. I hired him yesterday. _I didn’t expect him to make friends so quickly._”  
"I was honestly surprised he recognized me without the crust, and we got to talking, and he was so kind to help me carry the groceries here." _Here. Not home._ "And since you were old friends, we thought it might be nice if he stayed for a bit so you can catch up. Life gets in the way of such things so easily."  
Asra still stares at Lucio. “Right.” Then he looks to Julian who is holding out a glass of wine. Lucio hadn’t been, in fact, lying about no one being able to recognize him. Julian isn’t any the wiser. “Right!” Asra repeats, slightly more upbeat, somehow, slightly relieved.

Julian gives the magician a smile, and Faust makes her way over to the doctor. “_ Squeeze_!” He looks uncomfortable, but allows it. Asra again gives the dead man a look.  
“ So, _ Monty_, what are you making?” He waits until he sees the doctor take a sip of wine before he does the same.  
"Things with pumpkin. We'll see how they turn out. I may have to try out some of the spices you have here, boss. Will anything of it turn me into a frog?"  
“Just don’t use anything from the right of the stove on.” Asra replies dryly, gesturing to everything on the right. “Ilya, remember that time you asked to use some salt and you accidentally lost your voice for a week when you used that enchanted pink salt?” The magician smirks at the doctor, who stiffens indignantly, blushing.  
“I still do not understand why you would enchant such quality salt.”

Faust already heads toward the newcomer, tilting her head at him. Asra tries not to watch her intently as her little tongue flaps, studying the man once known as Lucio. Surely, she sees him for what he is?  
"How did you communicate then, Julian? Writing or with pantomiming?"   
The blond squats down, offers his hand to the snake like he would to a dog. "Hello you." It's strange. For the first time Faust doesn't outright dislike him.  
“That was a terrible week. I had to write out everything I had to say. Horrendous for a doctor trying to do his job.” Jules states, giving Asra a look. Asra, however, is watching Faust. “Oh, I remember it being a quiet week…” She continues to stare.  
“…It was kind of nice.”

His familiar blinks for another moment.  
“ Magic!” She chirps to the magician, who inwardly sighs. She smells Lucio’s hand, before slithering around him.   
"Do you want a snack, young lady?"  
He always had a thing for animals, admittedly, finding them easier to treat kindly than people.  
“ _ Snack_!” Faust makes her way up Monty’s arm.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” Julian asks the magician.

Asra is betrayed, hiding it in another sip of wine, while Julian looks on at the pair. Admiration sits behind his gaze, and the magician is more annoyed that both his familiar and his ex appear to be smitten with the newly hexed Lucio. Julian so distracted that he didn’t bother responding to his jibe. _Oh no. Not again._ Asra thinks, remembering the weird history those two seem to be keen on repeating.  
"What does she eat? I don't have any mice. Sausage, maybe?" He gazes over to Asra, questioning. Irritated, too, as he notices the expression on the magician's face. Had it been to daring to invite Jules?  
“_Goat_!” She says, and the magician raises a brow. He gathers from her that the man feels like a goat, a silly bleating thing with horns, but not a person. Asra tries not to burst into laughter. It eases his mood a little, and he points to the right side of the stove where he just told Monty not to touch.  
“I keep a jar of mealworms for her on the second shelf.”   
“Ah yes, I remember when we gathered a bunch together. That was the most disgusting day.” Julian chimes in.  
Again, the magician smirks, having won some of the conversation back. “Ilya. You only say that because you slipped and fell into a bog and had to walk back in your underwear.”   
Red in the face, Julian playfully glares at the magician. “And as I recall, you walked into a tree staring.” A grin cracks across the doctor’s face. Before waiting for a retort, he returns to setting the table for a third place. Asra rolls his eyes.

It is nice to see them like this, like it was back in the day, and Lucio, no, _ Monty_, seems happy enough about it. Offers the snake a few of the worms -used to worms, isn't he? - and goes back to work, adding onions and wine to the vegetables.   
Occasionally comes over to one of them if he can't open a glass or a jar with one hand, but other than that, he's _ silent _, a most unusual state for him, trying to fade in the background while the two of them bicker. Faust hangs around his neck like his golden necklace once did, and seems to comfortably doze in the warmth between skin and stove.

It's almost enough to distract Asra from the fact that it is Lucio being the one who was cooking them dinner. Almost. As it turns out, Julian is an excellent distraction, acting as a sort of an oblivious buffer between the dead man and the magician’s ire. Even the wine is decent enough, Asra considers, and can’t deny whatever the dead man had concocted smelled appetizing.

He just wishes Faust wasn’t so drawn to him too.

In the end, it's a thick, rich soup with slightly too much spice, because he of course had to try everything that seemed interesting, with bits of sausage and eggs cracked in it, with fresh bread as a side.

“Help yourself, will you?" Lucio seems quite proud of himself.  
Julian was the first to, followed tentatively by the magician. After that morning, Asra was honestly curious as to how the dead man’s cooking stacked up. Once seated, Asra furthest away from his newest employee, he went for a spoonful of what had turned more into a stew than anything else. It was certainly “ _ Flavorful _“, Julian had spoken the words as he had thought them. It wasn’t so much that it was bad, not at all, actually, just well. 

“_ Pungent_, I’d say.” Asra added, shooting a glance at Lucio. Faust stirred from her place around the dead man’s neck now that he was no longer by the stove, and back to Asra’s arm. She was wondering why he was being so mean.  
“It’s good.” Julian tacked on further, to balance out the commentary.  
"I may have overdone it a bit," Monty admits. "The excitement about a stranger's kitchen and all those interesting spices. Oh well, a learning experience, as so many things are." He beams at the two of them. "Wishes for the next time, boss?"  
Devorak doesn’t notice it, but Asra feels like he is looking at a new person. To the doctor’s eyes, he is.

“… I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”


	4. Chapter 4

Either something had happened to Lucio in those years wherever the tides of fate had brought him to, or he had gotten better at pretending. Both were valid possibilities, and Asra didn't know which one he preferred. It would probably only last as long as fortune kept him down anyway.

The way he was lounging on the kitchen chair, wine glass in his remaining hand, manspreading just because his dick was still to big for this world was still very much the man he knew. The rest, not so much.   
Conversation the rest of the meal was surprisingly not horrible, due to Julian’s rendition of the plot of a play he had recently starred in. Apparently, Portia sneaked into the playhouse to see it, and got kicked out before the final act.    
With the doctor doing most of the talking, it’s easier to ignore the pitfalls of the situation. That is, until they finish their soup. Julian is the last to do so and then willingly helps Monty with the dirty dishes, while Asra explains to his familiar and all those red-haired doctors who might accidentally be listening in what it is that the newcomer would be doing at the shop, and that this time is _ very different _ from the last time someone lived in the shop with him. 

“Later, Ilya.” He calls as he closes the back door behind him. 

It’s only as Julian leaves, bidding the magician and his new assistant a dear goodbye, that the magician is hit again with the reality of the situation. With a deep sigh, he turns to Lucio. “What were you thinking?” The question isn’t heated, but the undertone of his dissatisfaction is tangible.   
" _ He _ started it." Lucio mildly protests. "I just went along. It's how pregnancies happen, I know, but I honestly think he mainly wanted to see  _ you _ again. There was a change in him when I told him where I work now, it was a little... offensive. There I am, being pleasant and attractive, and all he thinks about is you." Asra makes a face, dying to take the bait. He doesn’t want to give Lucio the satisfaction of mentioning the dopey look on Devorak’s face pointed directly at ‘Monty’ the whole time, and if that means letting the dead man assume they are at it again, then so be it.

“‘Monty’? That’s the best you could come up with?”   
"It's my name, you know? When it comes down to it."   
Asra, about to say something, cuts himself short.    
“Wait, your name is actually ‘Monty’?”

" _ Montag _ ." He cringes. "Day of the moon. Father was very creative. Never wanted to ask if I was born on a monday or, you know, made. Wouldn't put it beyond him to start my life with a dad joke. I mean, there was a tradition in families with many children, after the firstborn was there and an heir, that you'd name them after days, but... I'm the first and only child. As far as I know. Hm..."

Raising a brow, the magician wonders if the wine and the loneliness has finally gotten to the dead man. He never talks about his past, let alone his parents. As far as Asra knew, Lucio could have been hatched from an egg. Like a snake.

“‘ _ Montag. _ ‘” Asra repeats to himself, looks away and considers. He gives a vague shrug. Then a quick exhale, more of a laugh than not.

“I like it better than ‘light bringer’.”

He doesn’t hate this side of the dead man. He hates that he doesn’t, because he should. It’s probably still all a lie, but even with his magic he doesn’t feel like it is. Monty wasn’t lying about being forgotten, after all.

"Oh, c'mon,  _ Lucio _ is a good name. Great to yell in battle and in revenge, also good for an ‘ _ Ooh, Lucio’ _ . Yelling ‘ _ Montag’ _ just sounds like you really don't want the week to start." A blush on his face. It seems he couldn't afford wine for quite a while.

Asra smirks, in on some sort of secret, and takes a few steps over to the dead man. “What do you mean?” Leaning in, he holds his mouth next to Lucio’s ear. “Oh,  _ Montag _ .” The magician breathily calls, tone basically a moan, before pulling back.

“That doesn’t work for you?”

He’s never seen the man in such a state, and revels quite a bit.   
"Have to hear it more often to judge that." The blond swallows hard.   
With a barely contained cheeky smile, Asra walks past Lucio and out of the room.   
“Do what dishes you can, and I’ll take care of the rest later. I’m taking a nap.” He calls from the other side of the curtain, before making his way upstairs.

And that Monty does. First, the dishes, most of them, and then the floors and the counter.

Lucio didn't think it would be so  _ satisfying _ to see the wood drink in the mixture of oils he got, become smoother and shiny again, and then he  _ remembers _ .

Remembers how one of the warrior women taught him to whittle back home. She had been hurt in her leg, unable to go raiding with the others, and she deemed him a better entertainment than doing nothing and waiting til things got better. First tries had been clumsy and ended in bleeding fingers, but he got better over the weeks, even if she rarely had a kind word for him. He had forgotten how  _ smooth _ wood could be when you treat it right.

-

Once upstairs, Faust peeks her head out from beneath Asra’s shirt, until she is looking straight at him.

“Angry?” She questions with concern.

“No… Kind of. Not really.” Asra waffles, coming to sit down on his bed. She slithers her way beside him. “He reminds you of a goat?” At his question, she tilts her head and giggles.

“Fuzzy!” At her answer, he smiles faintly, but wears a concerned expression.

“Yes, but he doesn’t remind you of the  _ last _ goat man we knew, does he? … Lucio?”

Faust’s distaste at the name is tangible. “Ew!” And she curls around Asra’s arm, before looking up at him again in a gentle negative reply.

“He doesn’t remind you of Lucio at all?” The magician tries to confirm. Again, he only gathers from her that the strange new man reminds her of a stumbling inept goat, cute, stubborn, and hapless.

“Magic!” She chimes again, and he nods.

“I guess he does have  _ some _ magic.” Asra states, knowing the dead man to always have harped on having magic capabilities that amounted to that of a toddler, and she disagrees. She  _ feels _ the magic about him, separate from his goatishness. She knows it’s not his magic, nor Asra’s. That it’s  _ good  _ magic. This, at least, is a comfort.

Nodding, he lies down on the bed, having been serious about his need for a nap. She curls back up into his shirt and over his chest. He places a hand over where she lays, and pushes all of the latent worry and strangeness from his mind and quickly falls asleep.

\---

Quite a few days later.

Something about the crowd that visits the shop has subtly shifted. Asra always got his share of middle-aged ladies coming in for a reading, but there seem to be more of them now, some coming for tea or incense or spice mixes now, just to get to chat with his new employee. Something about a man in viable age that still feels like a soldier, but is not afraid to use a broom or scrub the floors with his admittedly shapely butt up in the air seems to be appealing, and  _ Monty _ seems to enjoy that kind of attention, flirting a little with each of them, just being smiley and charming without making any promises that might annoy their husbands.

It's not like he's trying to stay out of Asra's way, but the former Count knows how a good servant should feel, so he keeps a polite distance.

All the while, the magician is at a loss. Watching, waiting for some sort of strategic move by the dead man to sweep the rug out from under him. Just for fun, just to watch Asra flounder. It never comes. And honest to goodness, not a single individual living in Vesuvia recognizes the dead man.

Day in and day out, Monty cleans, cooks, and helps stock the shop. He even schedules a few readings for Asra when he is preoccupied. It even occurs to the magician that, if Lucio keeps this up, leaving the shop to visit Muriel for a few days might be possible. That is, if Muriel wants the company. Relationship in a state of flux, it is almost a relief to deal with the existential dilemma that is getting acquainted with  _ Montag _ .

Asra wants to believe this person is real. It pains him to know that, perhaps, the part of him that for so long desperately wanted to see the dead man, well, dead, is starting to dissipate. Not that he is forgiving Lucio of his faults while alive. He is never going to be able to do that. But Asra’s thoughts travel back to The Wheel of Fortune, and his continued inability to hear from any of the cards.

Guard remaining up, the magician also keeps a polite distance.

Now and then, when Asra is out and no one else is around, Montag starts looking through the magician's books. Looking for something, anything, a hint on where to start looking.

Even though Asra may not believe it, he's pretty sure that his parents are still out there, and the first arm was a pretty good job, and he'd like another one, thank you very much, just maybe less golden this time, because that  _ was _ kind of eye catching, and he doesn't need that now, not anymore.

Conversely, when Asra is alone, after he sends Monty out on errands (or when he knows that the dead man is trying to catch Julian at the market again), Asra also researches. With no luck reaching his patron, he studies texts for spells on forgetting, rituals or whatever might have been done to make Lucio so unrecognizable to everyone apart from him. Of course, there were enchantments like the kind Asra had performed on Muriel, but this was  _ different _ . It was one thing to want to be avoided and forgotten, it was another to stare someone in the face wanting to be remembered. As far as Asra could tell, when Lucio had arrived, he was bleeding. The guards had done a number on the man, but he was bleeding elsewhere too. Whatever  _ Morga _ had done was an intense, deep magic, one that felt like a tangled knot around her son that Asra could hardly undo. Not that he wants to, exactly. If anything, he wants to know what he is dealing with. To make sure it that it’s real. That he isn’t going crazy.

Not that he will let on any of this to the dead man.

"Boss?" Monty asks one day during breakfast. "Think it might be a good thing to teach me a few tricks? You know, just to impress the customers? I feel like... maybe it would work better this time, you know?"  _ Because I'm having weird-ass dreams about the past and about fires and snow and blood, and they get worse the longer I stay here. _

The magician, egg still dangling from the fork in his hand, blinks slowly back at him for a moment. Finishing his bite, he places the utensil down. He had a feeling something like this would happen. Enough customers had been coming in just to see Monty enough now. Ever mister popular, wanting to entertain an audience.

“A ‘few tricks’ are not just things you can pick up, like some coins, or the plague. It takes actual  _ concentration _ , and practice.” Asra chides. “What would you even want to learn?”   
"Bit of fortune-telling, maybe? Just so I have more under my belt than my own opinion when they ask me for advice." He blushes, never good at nicely asking for things.   
“That’s not exactly beginners’ level magic.” For one, Lucio,  _ Lucio _ , of all people, would have to at least get acquainted with the cards. Maybe even one of the Arcana.   
Honestly, the idea makes Asra a little sick to his stomach.   
“And besides that…” He trails off, defeated, looking into his lap. “I don’t take on apprentices.”

"That's not apprenticing, boss. That's like... how I taught the cook of my mercenaries to decently fight. Not to become one of my men, but to stand his ground when push comes to shove. Huge difference."   
Asra makes a face. “So, instead, I’d be teaching my cook to do magic to flirt with housewives?”

Monty shrugs. "Yup. If you wanna break it down to that? It might be a good thing, financially speaking. Last three weeks... well, we actually started _selling_ things, which seems quite the novelty as far as the books go."  
He, of all people, has an idea of keeping the books? But then, it makes sense. People are different with money when it's actually their own and not the city's they rule over. The magician breathes a drawn out sigh of exasperation, dropping his head into a palm.  
“Fine;” he acquiesces, before glaring at the old goat. “Let’s see if any of it makes it past your thick ego.”  
"Ah, I'm so glad you're looking forward to this as much as I am!" Monty beams.

It is not an immediate lesson. In fact, Asra makes it a point to put it off, listing chores, and errands, and a laundry list of things to be done around the shop. It’s only after a few days that he even entertains the idea of sitting down and actually trying to teach the dead man anything, He thinks about running away to Muriel’s or the spirit realm, even the palace.

_ This is not a good idea. _ The thought keeps rising to the front of his mind.  _ Give him an inch, and he’ll take a mile. _ Even if it is innocent enough, and the magician tries, that doesn’t mean Lucio would even have any magical skill. He’d be harmless. 

What if he’s good?  _ Learn his weakness. _ At least then he could keep Lucio in check.

Nerves keep the magician on edge, wondering if the dead man would discover the reality of his fake blood magic.

Asra hates teaching. He has no patience for it.

Fur being rubbed the wrong way, on the fourth day, he eventually breaks down, and asks Monty to close shop early.

“When you’re ready, meet me in the back.” He leaves his  _ assistant _ , not his apprentice, never his apprentice, once again disappearing behind the curtain. Candles, wards, incense. All in place.  _ Please don’t make me regret this. _ _   
_ The dead man takes a while again, but as he appears, it's in a clean shirt and with a freshly washed face. The thing about  _ paying respect _ seems to have stuck.   
"I think I'm ready when you are, boss."

Something is burning, something woodsy and sweet, and there are candles on the table. In spite of his inward approval, distaste is still written across Asra’s face.   
“This is going to be very basic. If you can’t get past this, than there’s no helping you.” With a casual tilt of his head to the chair beside him, as they had been the first time Montag showed up, Asra distractedly begins to play with one of the candle flames, waving his fingers through it.   
"Fair." He sits down.  _ It's not like it could be the teacher's fault if the student fails, how could it be, right? _

Something in his posture spells _childlike excitement_, maybe because he didn't try to _force_ Asra to teach him like the last time, maybe because he allows himself to feel like that now, Montag suffering way less under the machismo that oozed out of Lucio. Asra turns to face him, fingertips trail away from the flame, dragging it along briefly, like water. If anything, he looks _bored_, or at least puts up a good front. He straightens.

“First, I am going to need you to breathe. Slowly in through your nose, and out through your mouth.”

Montag does. He's good at breathing. A pro. Does it every day. He closes his eyes as he does, and his shoulders sink down. Just like that, Asra can _feel_ him relax, like a settling morning dew after a cloudy night. Unlike anything he had felt from the man before, it’s directness jars the magician. It is not the same residue of his mother’s curse. Montag’s aura is as though someone finally shifts illumination around a room that had spent ages in the dark. With a vague hum, Asra considers his decision to go through with this yet again.

“Good.” A pause, noting the energy in the room reacting in time. Asra places his chin in his hand, thoroughly studying the dead man. “Now, if you can, concentrate on your center. Not your awareness of your body, but the energy that drives it.” While he says this, he pulls out the cards. An internal knee jerk within the magician signals some old emotional reaction, but he pushes it aside. A slight wrinkle of blond brows.

_ Center. My center. Ah! _

Asra feels him focus, but drawing his energy not where everybody tends to try, slightly above the navel, but down below, right into his root chakra.   
“Hold onto that focus.”

Shuffling the cards gently, Asra makes it a point to pull three of the Major Arcana out from the deck. While he does so nonchalantly, he knows they make themselves known when they want to. The three that emerge are The World, The Wheel of Fortune, yet again, and The Star. He does not pick them for himself, or even for Monty, but as a focal point.

Setting the three down before the man, face down, in no particular order, Asra inhales deeply, calming his own apprehension.

“This isn’t a reading. This isn’t about the future, but I want you to pull your focus to these three before you. Can you do that?”

"Erm..." He opens his eyes. Of course he can. Easy as pie. Done it again and again. He stares intently and quickly notices that doesn't do shit. Takes a deep breath and closes his lids again. Imagines the pictures on the cards lying there like he'd imagine a lover lying splayed out for him on lonely nights. Feels a giggle rise and exhales it as a long hum that sounds a lot like something matching his mental image. In the candle light, Asra flushes. Swallowing, the magician straightens again. Of course this is how Monty processes magic.  
“Which one guides you?”

After a heartbeat's hesitation, he taps the middle one. The Wheel, and somehow it feels like an ‘_of course’_. Asra nods, more to himself.  
“Which one repels you?”

"This one feels... empty?" Is that the right word even? His finger points to The Star.

“Hm.”

After a long moment, Asra nods again. He is hesitant to disclose to Monty what the cards are implying about him. That he lacks a connection to a power that might aid him, existing solely by the whims of fate, as would any of the spells he casts. If any of the Arcana were to pick up the pieces of where the Devil had once left off, it would be The Wheel. Asra files the information away in the back of his mind, but speaks none of it. Instead, he looks to the World.

“How do you feel about the third one? Really focus.” If anything, any pull Montag would have to it would indicate, something, anything outside of the hapless dead man’s fate.

“Try to  _ listen _ to it.” Maybe Asra doesn’t hate teaching as much as he thinks he does, he realizes as he finds himself scooting closer to Montag.

A little groan. This is harder than expected. Lucio was very bad at listening, and Monty had no opportunity to learn it.   
"I-- something with a new way?"   
“Stop anticipating. You’re trying to assume what it’s telling you without actively  _ listening _ . Don’t rush.   
"Okay..." He gnaws his lip. "Snow? I think I'm smelling snow?"

A slight chill spreads throughout the room.

“Where’s your focus?” Even Asra could tell the man’s energy was being pulled, like a distraction. It is a lot to balance. Most can’t.   
The man's hand curls into a fist, thumb inside, not really for a punch, but... something's upsetting him, and he sounds like a scared child. "There's something in the path. Rock. No. Bone? White.  _ Loud _ . Eating the words?"   
Asra has never seen him so utterly confused.   
“Let’s stop for now.”

Bright eyes fly open. "Can I have a hug?"   
Asra finds himself staring for one long moment.  _ No. _

Unsure, he nods.

Monty clears his throat, focuses enough to read the magician's expression. "Ah, sorry. Nevermind. I was just... out of it for a second," and he looks away. Still not having an easy time showing any weakness, that one.

The magician clears the cards, snuffs out the candle, and leaves Lucio at the table as he goes to put out what’s left of the incense burning across the room. He approaches the curtain, and sighs. Expression troubled. Before another thought arises, arms are around Monty’s shoulders, blond head brought in to be tucked into Asra’s neck. It’s then that Faust appears from wherever it is that she hides on the magician’s person, to find her way around the dead man’s arm.

“Squeeze!”

He can feel the magician’s breath in another sigh fall against his hair as he is held.   
"Thank you, Faust," Monty mumbles.

-

Over the course of the following week, the shop’s proprietor makes himself, once again, scarce. When he is around, every so often he will come across the dead man sat at the table in deep concentration, or with his nose in a book. He can feel Lucio’s effort, underlying some great stoppage, not the sort forged of hot chains, but a limiting of sorts, a flagging off of one corner in a room where light would shine in. It feels woven into the knot of the man’s current curse, and Asra does not know if it is something he wants to untangle or not. There is something pathetic and pitiable about Monty as he tries, the few times the magician can hear the wretch whimpering after futile attempts to connect with an outside source of magic. Yet, he doesn’t complain. Chores remain done. Customers continue to show up to chat with the strapping new assistant. Business is successful as ever, and subtly, Asra hopes word of the shop’s success will reach the palace, and the it’s original owner.

Still, he waits for the dead man to approach him again, half waiting for Lucio to barge into a room, demand all of Asra’s attention, and another lesson. But he doesn’t seem to know Monty, and it keeps nagging at him that the magician himself might no longer recognize Lucio anymore either. Montag, on the other side, is _pissed_. With the situation, with Asra, with his mother, and maybe, maybe even mainly, with himself. It just doesn't feel _fair_, like trying to scratch your own nose because it itches for quite a while and, well, you got no hand left to scratch it. It's against his pride to ask again, and there's the underlying fear that Asra will refuse and tell him it's a lost cause, and he doesn't need that.

He's tried the whole fortune thing for a customer, and judging by her face, the advice he read from the cards was decent or what she expected, but he also knew the gist of her problem and might not have been  _ listening _ to these stupid pieces of cardboard, but just stating the obvious, what does he know.

_ Nothing: _

_ Montag, you know fucking nothing. _

Everything stays the course, unchanging, for the better part of another week. Asra distant, yet curious; Montag increasingly frustrated. After finding a series of books stacked by the dead man’s makeshift bed, the magician finally considers extending a helping hand. One night, after they close up shop, a familiar silence between them sits. Montag is in the back, and Asra finds him sifting through yet another book, aggravated expression bending his face.

“…  _ Monty _ , I-”

There is a knock at the front door, heavy and solid, even though the shop has just been closed. Immediately, Asra knows who it is. He whips out from behind the curtain, rushing to the door and opening it. A tall shadowed figure stands.

“Muriel.” Entire demeanor softening, Asra steps aside to let the bear of a man in.

It has been weeks since his last journey into the city. They had tried, really, but Muriel just wasn't cut from the right cloth live in Vesuvia, and, after a while, wasn't willing to try anymore. "You have not changed," is his whole comment, but that was good, right? He loved him like this, and always would.

Now he stands on the verge of the shop, sniffs the air in the room, and tension grows in his musculature. "Something's wrong."

Unable to help it, Asra’s entire body tenses. It never occurs to him that, out of all people, perhaps Muriel would be able to see Monty for who is was. Lucio’s words still burned in the back of the magician’s mind on top of that, causing a swelling dread to fill him.

“What?” Is all he can manage, along with an expectant blink.   
"You cleaned. And someone else is here.”   
Asra is not quite sure which fact is worse.   
“Yes… I got an assistant.” He explains calmly. Faust appears, happy to see the bear, climbing up Muriel’s leg affectionately.   
" _ Assistant, _ " he says, and it sounds like  _ apprentice _ , and like a curse. He still isn't over the whole affair. "Who?"

It leads to Asra walking Muriel into the back room, where he suddenly _really_ wishes that Montag wasn’t currently looking through one of his magic books. Inhaling unsteadily, he waits for all hell to break loose, looking between the two.  
"What's this?" Not even a _who_ for the stranger.  
"I'm Monty. Pleasure to meet you, erm..." He rises from the chair, hand first stretched out, then just raised in a greeting, as the bear just stands and stares at him. Scoffs. It almost comes out as a grunt.  
"I see." _And I don't like it._  
Asra knows that tone, and Monty can see the magician cringe.  
“See _what?_”   
Another grunt. "Feels wrong."

Monty's cheery smile remains frozen in place, even as the bear comes closer. Stares down on him.  _ Oh my, has he always been that big? No wonder I made him do the job I did. _

The green eyes tighten, and then, he-- he just turns on his heel and walks out.

“Muriel!” Asra doesn’t even bother to look at Monty as he runs out after him. Already at the door, the magician grabs hold of Muriel’s arm. A look back, and the broad man continues out of the door. Asra follows him outside, into the street.    
“Muriel,  _ wait _ , talk to me.” Although passersby look in their direction, their attention is quickly lost as the bear’s charm works its magic. Facing one another, the discomfort on the bear’s face is clear.

Nothing ever good comes after that phrase when it comes to matters between the two of them, a phrase usually reserved for when Asra wants too much too quickly, pushing Muriel for words he doesn’t have.  
“What feels _‘wrong’_?”  
At least, if Muriel sees Lucio for who he is, he hasn’t killed the man on sight yet. Asra needs to know.   
"Him."

Inside Asra's study, Montag comes to the conclusion that it might be the wisest thing to leave. Take a walk, maybe, the weather is nice, and he really doesn't want to hear the two lovebirds arguing, but any way through the door leads past them, and... yeah. He decides on a gentleman's exit through the window, just out of nostalgia, not because of sudden respect for the things he has seen the bear do, and lands with bare feet on the cobblestone of the street outside. It's the only reasonable way out when a husband comes home unexpectedly.

“What about him? How is he wrong?” Asra nearly pleads. And, much to his relief, Muriel just _shrugs_. Morga's magic seems strong enough. Which leaves him the rest of his concern.  
“Well, he’s just an assistant. He wandered into the shop asking for a handout. I thought... I could use the help.” Asra adds, as if that makes everything better.  
"A _handout_."

It  _ is _ a nice day, all in all, and the change in his pocket won't buy Monty shoes, but at least a drink, and in an hour or two, everything will be better. Or escalated nicely. Nah, better, probably. Muriel hasn't tried to rip Asra's head off yet, and he's known him for quite a while. A tavern or the market... hmm. Those are the difficult choices in life, as long as he doesn't think about uncooperative books and the general mess his head still is after that thing with the cards Asra did. The dreams have gotten more intense since then, and more... not violent. Primal.

“Yes, a handout.” Asra knows this is technically true, but also that no matter what, Muriel was able to at least sense the curse lingering around his new hire. “That’s all it is,” The magician tries, taking the man’s large hand into both of his own. Out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees a blond head of hair duck down the alley beside the shop. “He knows how to stay out of my way.”  _ Finally. _ “Please.” Asra pulls himself into Muriel’s arm, smiling.

The bear still cringes at what he considers a not very good pun. "Will you start traveling again, then?" he asks afterwards, as little pleased with that idea as with that of the new assistant. "You wanted to since...  _ the palace _ .” The magician frowns at the comment, before sighing.   
“I’m... still trying to figure things out. I’m  _ finally _ around to take care of the shop.” With a conflicted look, he can still sense Muriel’s displeasure. “And I’m working on things, really,” Asra looks up at him affectionately, if not a still slightly too pleading way.   
"Are you." A long pause full of things unsaid, as it always has been with him. At least, his big hand doesn't pull away this time. After the argument, it had for a while.   
“You  _ know _ neither of them is speaking to me right now.” Growing wistful, he pulls himself in to lean into Muriel’s side.   
“I’m doing the best I can to make things right, and if that means running the shop and  _ not running away _ , then I will.”

Muriel sighs a heavy sigh. He won't remind him now that both of them agreed that this was a last favor to one they once loved, but that they had grown tired of him, so very, very tired. The apprentice had told Muriel their version of the story, very much unasked for, as they always did, and... even he can see the reasons by now. Still, he can't leave Asra alone, not after a lifetime together.

“You  _ know _ I just want what’s best for everyone. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

The strain in his voice is noticeable, the only indication of Asra’s awareness that not everyone sees things his way. Still, he holds onto Muriel tighter. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”  _ Save for Lucio. _ Which figures.

Muriel is kind enough to just hold him silently, but he saves a nod or an agreeing hum for another time. They have discussed it often enough. Well, Asra has, the same reasons circling in a never ending monologue, and while the bear never stopped listening, he sometimes wished he could.


	5. Chapter 5

"Lost your shoes already, Monty? Here's your tea."

"I didn't  _ lose _ them. I... was in a hurry and forgot them at home. It happens." He beams at the seller. Since he's been here with Jules, he comes back every so often, because... It feels nice. Having the tea the way the doctor likes it is  _ nice _ and reminds him of their first shy kisses back in the day, when he was still a dog of war and Jules barely more than a boy. He was so sweet and clumsy and  _ innocent  _ back then, utterly baffled that he caught the commander's eye.

-

The young medic swears he can see blood left on the glass where his fingertips were holding it. There had been so much of it over the course of the day, and yet still, they had lost. Not that it was by any fault of his own, the dead and dying were surely already well on their way by the time Ilya had gotten to them, but it didn’t lessen the sting of watching so much life slip through his fingers. As he raises the last of his third glass to his lips, he welcomes the liquid to continuously numb the emotional squalor that battle has heaped upon him.

The bar is loud, and rambunctious, gleefully so, two gentlemen on the verge of a fight to his right, another two folks getting it on nearly up top the bar. It is the right amount of life the doctor Devorak wants to surround himself with. It is a perfectly desired chaos, ready to sweep him away at any moment.

Just as the thought passes through his mind, he is shoved into the bar, the rim of his glass just missing his teeth. Fortunately, the contents had already been emptied, but it does not keep the form at his back from retreating, consistently leaning on him. He pushes the man off, or at least tries, the weight not moving.

“Excuse me.” Devorak tries, turning only to see a pair of broad arms reaching for him.

“Excuse  _ you _ .” An angry man who smells of aged cheese and molded liquor grips hard at Ilya’s shoulders and lifts him from his seat, nasty hot beer breath in his face. It’s impossible for him not to cringe, realizing that  _ this _ was a little too much life for the young doctor in that moment.

The bloated face contorts in sudden pain. Ilya's first thought goes to him having a heart attack right in front of his eyes, but then someone very kindly asks to ‘ _ Leave the kid alone’ _ and twists the earlobe just a little bit more, and the man twists along, trying to get away from the pain.

It leaves the hapless doctor to fall back into his seat at the bar, watching in avid wonder as the hulking form before him retreats, leaving his savior. A clean, muscular, yet unmistakably handsome, blond man. Wearing a sharply cut gold and white tunic under layers of fur, the man grins victoriously at the bully as he scampers away, Ilya has little else to do stare wide eyed, before finding his voice.

“Thank you.” He coughs.

"Not the slightest problem, kid." Grin remaining slightly shifting into something a bit softer as impossibly bright eyes shift over the lanky body before him. It feels a bit  _ obscene _ to be looked at like this, a customer checking the wares and finding them to his liking. "It's too early for bloodshed. We had enough of it over the last few days, don't you think?"

Ilya deflates at this, and what was almost a smile encroaching over his face turns into a thousand yard stare. To the knowledgeable, it is clear that the poor thing has seen very much in a very short amount of time.

“I do, yes.” He cradles the empty glass in his lap idly.

"What are you having? My tab." The blond settles next to him without asking.

Eyeing the stranger, the doctor finds himself not minding their sudden proximity a bit, as the man clearly is not leaning on him - or touching him in any way at all. Yet.

“... What was it that the bartender called this marvelous drink?” He asks himself, suddenly aware of how much he had before this, but it only provides him the confidence to talk to this new savior of his.

“Yes, if I recall, Salty Bitters! I’m having that.” He turns to the man now beside him, placing the empty glass back on the bar. “One would think I would be sick of salt - I’m from Nevivon, but no! This really does the... trick...” Ilya trails off, nodding, getting a little lost in the man’s bone structure. “- Thank you. Again.” Why does he yammer? A moment ago he was waxing away about the temperamental nature of mortality, and now he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. He feels much better.

The blond orders two of those, even though he clearly sees the boy already had a few too much, but sometimes a puppy like him needs to hurl into some dark alley to clear his head. They've all been there.

"Nevivon? What brings you here, then? It's quite a bit of road."

After a wordless toast to the blond and a swig of his drink, Ilya perks up and smiles. “Medicine! ” After a beat, the smile turns wry. “I’ve been studying in Prakra for the past few years.” A weighted pause, where he blushes. “This is my first time out in the field.”

"And you selected one that is not one of the easy ones. In for a challenge, are you?"

He doesn't bother asking which side the boy was on.

“ _ Always. _ ” The drink has caught up with him, as he sits up to have a slight theatrical tone to his voice, although he is still remarkably coherent. It is undecidedly precious, or precocious.

“And you? With your...What with your...” The medic gestures to the whole of the stranger, “-Fur.”

"Want to touch it, boy? It's so very smooth and warm." He leans in a bit, invitingly so.

“Well...” Ilya is already bringing a hand to it, in spite of the flush that has overtaken his cheeks, nose, and ears. Running it up into the blond’s hair, his brows shoot up, confident grin sliding into tentative daring. He does not even notice that the man hadn’t actually answered his question.

“Yes, very.”

"It's  _ nice _ , isn't it? Want to try it on later?"

Breath catches in the redhead’s throat, brows raise, and he looks utterly delighted at the prospect. Ilya can barely help it, the way the decorated stranger looks at him makes it all too easy to want to let go of the day. To fall straight onto the soft fur under his fingertips and into the solid arms of the man before him.

“If you’re offering.” The flush persists.

-

“Monty!” Speaking of which.

It’s just as Monty is going to sit down again on the same steps that he and the doctor say upon together that he sees the doctor himself. Julian approaches him, and the excited smile and medic bag held under arm does nothing but emphasize old memories. The smile fades, and Julian double takes.

“Where are your shoes?”

"Oh, that was..." A funny thing. One with an errant octopus in the channels and... He stops midstory. "I think Asra and the big guy were arguing because of me, so I pissed off. Through the window. My shoes are warm and safe in the shop."

At the admission, Julian perks up, a knowing look tinging his expression.

“You don’t say.” A quick frown. “They might be a while.”

He considers the road around them, dirt, stone and debris, before continuing, “Would you like me to carry you somewhere...  _ softer _ ? Grass, perhaps?” He grins.

"I'm not in the right clothes for that. What kind of a dashing hero shall you be with a damsel in pants? That needs lace and a corset." Even though the idea isn't too offputting. "And I’ve spent enough time without shoes for the last several moons. It will be fine. When you say  _ a while _ , does it mean I better look for new shoes and a another place to sleep? Help me out here."

Devorak looks pained, then uncomfortable.

“It depends, really. You say you  _ think _ they were arguing because of you? … Why would that be?” He quirks a brow.

"I don't think he likes... well, judging from what Asra said, he doesn't want an apprentice, and the big guy probably thought I was one?"

Julian’s expression grows curious.

“ _ Are _ you his apprentice?”

"I'm a salesperson. And maybe eye candy to attract customers, but that's it."

Then, Monty sees a look cross the doctor’s face that he had not seen in years. A sly knowing, one that speaks to years of putting up with the magician’s antics.

“How shall I put this… Is Asra teaching you magic?”

"I may have asked him if I can learn a few buzzwords to sell his things better, but I won't be throwing fireballs. So no, not really!”

The look doesn’t fade, even as Julian shrugs.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have a thing to worry about! They’ll have it out and you’ll be back on the sales floor in no time.”

"Say what you want to say, Doc. Swallowing it down is bad for your health."

“Asra can be… stubborn. He and Muriel have known each other since they were children, and no matter the circumstances,” Julian deflates. “They should have known better than to complicate it with romance.” He speaks the last part to himself, speaking to his own experience. Devorak looks off, wistfully. “As much as he hates being around people, he’ll always need someone waiting for him.”

Realizing that Monty is still listening to him, Devorak blushes.

"Romance? Them? Ha!" The blond coughs. That came out harsher than he intended.

“Either way, anything that happens between them wouldn’t be on you.”

"Sorry, but there is  _ no _ chemistry between them. At all."  _ There never was. Whose idea was that even? _

A bemused look thankfully replaces the pitiful one that had been growing across the doctor’s face.

“It surprised me when it surfaced. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an odd reaction to Asra’s last apprentice running off with the Countess.” Julian blurts in a Devorakian fashion, before looking at his new friend as if he has said too much.

"He'll fuck everything that moves and call it love, won't he?"  _ Wow. He's worse than me. _

At this, Julian turns red in the face.

“Well, not  _ everything _ , - and he certainly won’t call it love. I’m not sure he knows what love is, in all honesty.” After this, he clears his throat.

"Do  _ you _ know it, Doc? On a scientific basis?"  _ Because I still like to think you are a little in love with everyone you share your bed with. _

“Love?” Cheeks still pink, Julian blinks at Montag in consideration. “I would like to think so.” A smile then, faint and shy that grows into more of a smirk, appears on the doctor’s lips.

"You're on the way somewhere? Because I may just follow you there, if you don't mind."

“On my way back, in fact. A patient of mine is expecting, due very soon, and I was paying her a visit.”

"So, do you mind?" The idea of Jules as a midwife feels utterly strange to him.

“What about your feet?”

"I could march through the steppe on those, Doc. Don't you worry." ‘ _ You could not, pathetic weakling’. Thanks, mother. _

“If you don’t mind accompanying me to my next house call? It’s across town.”

The doctor smiles at him again, an innocent smile, totally unassuming. It is the sort that Devorak used to wear back when they had just met.

Montag can't help but smile back.

Devorak is an enamored puppy all over again, although much less shell shocked this time around. Helping Monty to his bare feet, Julian walks him to the smoothest part of the roadway. It occurs to Montag that the doctor carries himself with a far more authentic confidence than when they had met, a lanky arm extending to his companion, freely offering the physical contact.

He takes the arm like that of an old friend - well, he is, isn't he, in a way at least - and starts asking questions. What is the doctor doing? Since when? Does he like it? How's the state of things in Vesuvia? Trying to catch up without making it too obvious is easier said than done, but then Monty is a stranger in this town.

Julian does a wonderful job at keeping up with the inundation of questions, aware that his new friend has been away for quite a bit. That he mostly did house calls, his clients at worst sick with a flu or some other temporary malady, nothing like the Plague. Which was quite a relief, he mentions as he scratches absently behind the strap of his eyepatch. He’s headed to an elderly man at the moment, who had reverently suffered a head wound. They chat their way through the streets, blissfully unaware of the world around them. Almost.

Just as Monty nearly steps on a set of jagged gravel, Julian takes him by the waist and guides him away. 

“Watch, there.” Julian holds onto the man, blushing once more.

"Mh? Oh!" The blond laughs. "Serves me right for not watching my step. Thanks. Had my eyes on more interesting things."

_ Dammit. That's true even. _ Jules with something like an ego is so surprisingly attractive that Lucio himself is confused, or maybe it's just because he's different now, while Asra is still the same, or maybe it's because the gray eye looks at him without hate or pity now, so different from how things used to be. Without pity, and without fear.

Julian laughs with him, letting go quickly and looking away. Despite the ego, bashfulness still underlies some of his actions.

“The canals  _ are _ quite beautiful around these parts, yes.” He jibes, elbowing Monty teasingly. And he isn’t wrong, they are in an older, untouched, part of town, one that held up better over the years than its surroundings. The curve of the water through the buildings led to an open patch of sky, that would soon hold the setting sun inside of it. “It must have been some time since you’ve last seen them?”

"I... I'm not quite sure if I've ever been here." And he really isn't. Maybe in the beginning, when he wasn't doomed to be recognized wherever he went, when Vesuvia still was his oyster instead of his prison. 

_ My prison. _ It's the first time that word springs to his mind, and Monty is surprised how  _ right _ it feels.  _ Did I even like it on the throne? I mean, of course I did, and I looked good there, but it was hard to have fun. All the debauchery grew boring so quick. _

“Really?” Jules questions with surprise, standing aside, letting the man take it in. “How long were you living here before you fled to the woods?”

"Mh? Oh... a while. Time here wasn't one of my proudest, looking back. Think I'm just not cut from the right cloth to be caught in a city for a long time." He sounds entangled in a dream he's having a hard time waking from.

“Oh?” The doctor looks on, watching Monty look before him dazedly. “And before you lived here?”

"Was a bit of a stray. Came with the job, I guess. Where there was conflict, there was work, and after a while all places are the same, because they always end the same." It's more of a white lie than a real one. Lucio back then carefully selected the battles his men fought, doing his utmost to keep them in the best shape and happy and  _ alive _ , even if it sometimes meant refusing a lucrative offer.  _ Pick your battles. _

“A fighting cook.” Jules hums in consideration, before taking a few steps on, kicking aside some debris before his companion can step on it.

"Are you happy here, Doc? Nice wife and kids to come home to? Or are you too busy for that?"  _ Probably you still are, sweet Jules, aren't you? And still not allowing yourself to be happy. _

“Married to my work, you see,” With a smile, the doctor nods to Monty, before holding up a finger in thought. “Although I did on occasion find myself with enough time to understudy at the Community Theater. And of course, finding the time to have dinner with suave one-armed blonds.” Julian grins.

"Are you collecting those in your spare time? Knew there was something odd about you. Probably tie them up and hide them in your cellars for later use, mh?"

The doctor uneasily clears his throat.

“Not anymore. It was a time and a place, what can I say.” Shrugs.

“But to answer your question, I  _ am _ happy here.”

"So, you don't have a cellar anymore, I see. Well, that is understandable. They just take up a lot of space."

“My next appointment is just down that way.” They have stopped before a turn in the canal, where the ground turns from cobble into less finished wood and cement. At this, a deep blush begins to creep over his face.

“I could not ask you to continue on only to turn back... but I can ask if you would like to meet up for a drink later? Once you get your shoes back, of course.”

"So it's another one-armed man you're having dinner with, I see. But yeah. I'd love to. Want to meet up at the shop... Or anywhere but there?" Both seem very much a possibility.

The doctor only keeps blushing, and quirks a brow.

“Have you been to The Rowdy Raven?”

"Not sober enough to remember, probably," Monty laughs.

No, he had not, how should the Count get there. He knew what Jules told him about his favorite tavern, a place where adventure and violence lay just one Salty Bitters away, but he had been too sick already to feel much need to go out anymore.

“Of course,” With a laugh, Julian’s grin falls on just the side of a knowing mischief. 

“Might I pick you up from the shop then?” He pauses, “... Once the coast is clear?”

"I'll go out for a walk around nine, when everything is closing anyway. If I get whisked away by a pirate, what am I to do?" Monty gives his best damsel-in-distress impersonation. "I'd be helpless! Poor innocent lad like me!"

Jules playfully jumps to his side, poised to reach out and sweep him off of his feet.

“Who knows what may befall you!” His grin is infectious, although he stops just short of actually touching Monty, pausing a lengthy moment before retracting.

“You might just find yourself in a seedy bar, surrounded by ne’er-do-wells! ... Or at least drunk merchants.”

"Those are the worst. Rob you of your money and make you want it."

-

As foretold, the bar is lively with ne’er-do-wells and drunken merchants, and whathaveyou. It sounds as if someone is trying to play a jaunty tune somewhere, but it is drowned out by an exuberant crowd. As it turns out, the Rowdy Raven so resembles where they had met in so long ago that the man who once called himself Lucio has to double-take around the room for several moments. However, in place of fighting their way up to the bar, Julian brings him to a semi-private booth, out of the way of the more, well, rowdy, occupants. As opposed to earlier, the doctor appears far more casual, no longer buttoned up and buried under so many distancing layers. He resembles more of a roustabout, looking less a doctor and more a pirate. Gesturing, he bids the man to sit.

“Allow me to cover the first round,  _ lad _ .” The doctor gives him a winning smile, still standing, leaning in onto the booth some so his voice can be heard over the noise, pitting them already pleasantly close before Julian can even sit. His eye twinkles, finally in his element, surrounded by utter chaos. “What can I get for you?”

"Water." He waits a second to see Jules' face fall. Cracks up. "Just joking, Doc. Whatever you're having will be fine. Medicine, after all!"

Lucio wished he could have changed, but a new wardrobe is yet a thing on the bucket list. He's making do with two shirts, two pants and one tunic, all of them painfully lacking in fur and golden embroidery.

With a relieved laugh, Julian nods and goes to get drinks. From what the blond can see, the lithe form of the doctor slips right into the crowd ahead, almost completely disappearing if not for the occasional surfacing of red hair. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take him long at all before he emerges back through the throng with a side shimmy, two beverages in hand, wide grin plastered on his face. No one else could have made it that quickly through that crowd save for a face so known and loved throughout Vesuvia.

Returning to their table, Julian finally slides into their booth, placing the drinks before them.

“Certainly, you’ve had Salty Bitters before?”

It is much easier to hear him now.

"Don't think my ex would like you hear them call such, true as it may be." Lucio grins.

“Your  _ ex _ ?” Julian perks up at this.

"Very ex, yeah. Been a few years now. Probably has totally forgotten about me." Another grin. He's not even lying.

“Is that so? Well, you’re in the employ of mine.” Julian lifts his glass for a toast, with the slightest devilish glint in his eye.

“To moving on.”

Again, the doctor toasts to the present, although this time the suggestive context isn’t to be missed.

"To new beginnings."

Glasses clink, and men drink, one with a smile, the other with a shudder. Salty Bitters are exactly as vile as Lucio always imagined them to be, because vile things just seemed Jules' taste.

Julian must notice, as he gives the blond a curious look.

“Not to your taste?” He still smiles, however, apologetically amused. Then, he shifts in his seat, slightly leaning in. The glint in his eye remains.

“What  _ do _ you prefer, Monty?”

"As a drink?" Silver eyes way too innocent to mean only that.

Jules shrugs casually, although his smile says otherwise.

“In all things.”

"You have some vices you want to talk about, but don't dare to start?"  _ I know you do, unless your taste has changed by 180 degrees. _

A slowly growing blush then spreads like wildfire across the doctor’s face before he takes another, more nervous, drink. 

“Yes, but...” Like that, his bravado begins to dissipate around the edges in just the same way Lucio can recall from the past, brows lifting momentarily. With a slight laugh, Julian points to Monty’s beverage.

“Would you like something else first? I could easily get you something else if you like.”

"If you find it so shameful that it burns your soul to even think about it, you should probably get me to the edge of forgetting before telling me. But then, Julian, what if I  _ like _ the ideas you're having, and still forget about them once I'm sober again?"

“I should hope you that you don’t.” The doctor says into his drink, he finally pauses and straightens, regaining some of his earlier confidence. “Tell me, Monty, you’re an efficient man. Would you happen to know how to tie a decent knot?”

"Know, sure. Might be harder with one hand though. What do you need tied?" Feigning ignorance about what would come amuses Montag more than he expected.  _ Aroused _ him a little even.

“Oh,” At this Julian shifts in his seat, looking askance, “Nothing  _ complicated _ , you know, just, well,  _ me _ . Maybe.”

"You?" A mildly irritated smile. "Do you think you  _ deserve _ being tied up or is it just a thing you like?"

_ So at least that's still the same. _

A wave of emotions wash over Julian’s face very quickly ranging conflict to despair, before settling on a sort of pleasant relief.

“It’s something that I like.”

Had the question be posed a few years prior, the answer would have been very different.

"I mean, I can  _ try _ , I guess, but is that really something you want a stranger to do? What if it turns out I never left my old ways, mh?" A quirky little grin.  _ This is a test, Jules. _

“I  _ knew _ Asra had a henchman secretly snatching customers to use them for some malevolent magic.” Julian grins right back.

"Well, I guess he's always looking for volunteers, if that's what you're saying."  _ So you're still very nonchalantly throwing your life away if you find someone attractive. Or does working for Asra give me a bonus on trustworthiness? _

“My days of being apart of his witchcraft are over, thank you, but I don’t think he would allow just anyone to work in the shop unless he trusted them.”

So, it was the second.

Montag feels a blush rising, not one because of Jules, but because the notion of being trusted by Asra just feels so off.

"Let me get the next round. More of those Salty Bitters for you?"

His train of thought unbeknownst to the doctor, the redhead smiles and gives him a nod.

The few minutes it takes to get them new drinks are enough to utterly confuse Montag. This has never happened, not even with Noddy.  _ Asking _ a potential mate  _ before _ anything happens isn't him, and it feels like ordering the food you want instead of being torn away by hunger and just devouring whatever you feel like. He's not sure he likes it. Maybe it's what his mother did, maybe it's the lack of demonic influence, or maybe he's just getting old. Mellow with age. What a horrible idea.

As he sits back down, puzzled look on his face, Julian gives him a quick ‘thank you’. A moment later, he quirks a brow.

“Something I said?”

"No. Not at all. Just trying to figure out logistics. What... what is it you want to do when you're tied up? Or... having done to you, I guess?"

_ It sounds like I've forgotten how this shit works. Maybe I have? You liked to be tortured back then, until you almost broke, while you choked on my cock, but... can I still do that? Do I even want to? _

“Oh. Well...” Julian looks off, holding his head high in contemplation, “Nothing  _ painful _ .” He looks back to Montag pointedly, before giving him a smile.

“Pleasure would be preferable.”

That earns him a smile. "No pain. Got it."

_ So you too have changed. Not so horribly keen on dying anymore? I'm glad. _

Devorak grins back through the consistent blush’s staining his cheeks.

“I’m not against playing it a little rough,” He raises a suggestive brow, “If given good reason.” A pause, and the doctor takes another, although much less nervous, drink. “Are there any particular preferences of yours that I should be made aware of?”

"I--" a long, confused pause. "It may have been too long ago for me to truly tell. Back in my day, I was a very different person, maybe with very different needs."

Julian’s flirtatious expression softens at this, from a grin to a soft smile, the doctor reaching out to hold Montag’s hand.

“Oh, well, shall we figure out what those needs might be together?”

"But what if it's soft and nice things I..." The blond shudders at the thought.

A rich laugh falls from Julian’s mouth.

“What’s wrong with that?”

"With being a bore? With being...." How to put it politely? "...not decadent?"

The look on the doctor’s face radiates sheer affection.

“That’s absolutely fine.”

He doesn’t let go of Monty’s hand.

"Not for me, Jul- _ ian _ ."  _ Damn. He almost said Jules. _ "It was important for me to cultivate a certain... intrigue? If that's not my thing anymore, where's the fun?"

“Who is to say whatever you  _ do _ like won’t be just as intriguing?” Devorak asks smoothly in reply, smoother than he had ever been toward Lucio while he was alive.

That earns him a laugh. "You don't have to try to sweet talk me into getting laid, Doc, I'm already here. Just can't promise I'll be at my best."

Julian laughs along with him, blushing once more.   
“Living alone in the woods with no one around for so many years might have that effect on a person. I’ll forgive you.”

_ Of course you do. You always did. Well, up to the end. _

And then Montag says something he'd never ever thought he's ask anyone, and especially not Jules: "Can you take the lead for a while? Just ‘til I get back into gear?"

The doctor’s expression of surprise at the comment quickly grows affectionate once more, and he brings Montag’s hand to his cheek.

“Of course.”

Without hesitation, Julian leans over and places a gentle kiss on his lips.

A shiver runs through the blond. He knows these lips, knows them so very well, and yet, they've never been like this. The good doctor never was allowed to be the one to choose the path when he lay with him, well, never anybody had really, and while Montag had never been opposed to be led around by a leash for a while, it mostly included whips and clear orders, because that was how Noddy liked it.

Of course, presently, there was the addition of his facial hair to deal with, but it did nothing to deter Devorak, who only took his chin in hand and tilted it tentatively up to softly deepen the kiss, his other arm coming to wrap around his waist. It was a gesture the doctor had long been waiting for, if felt like, as he pulls him closer. Longer than he knows, probably. In that moment, he’s very bit the dashing pirate he had always made himself out to be, sweeping Monty off of his feet. It’s not until a loud whistle sounds somewhere from further somewhere in the bar that Julian pulls away, a red blush furious under a shy grin.

The blond looks dazed. This doesn't seem to be what he expected. Well, yeah, in a way it probably was, but not that instantaneously after asking nicely. That's what would he have done, of course it would be, and he doesn't remember Jules' lips to be like this, but it has been a long time and a very different one too.

The doctor, somewhere between bashful and suave, smiles at him in such a way that strikes Monty. Finally, for once in his life, Julian is self possessed, confident, and no longer the withering flower that had for so long wilted in the face of the slightest sign of dominance.

What that bout of dying to meet with The Hanged Man had done to Devorak was the exact opposite of what death had done to the blond.

“Was that alright?”

There, Julian’s nerves finally show.

Montag slowly nods. Touches his own lips, lids heavy. No, he's not dreaming, and if he is, it's a quite credible dream, and then he finally smiles. Kisses didn't feel like this when they were plentiful, not as big and meaningful, or maybe it was just because it had been so many years, or maybe it was because it still was Jules. The boy had always been his favorite.

“Monty, you have barely touched your drink.” Julian mentions, scooting back a bit as prying eyes continue to watch them.

"True." He empties it in one gulp. "What you looking at, eh?" For a brief moment, the old Lucio is back, every pore brimming with the promise of violence, and the guy at the bar who was the one staring mostly intently quickly turns his head.

As the attention leaves them, a slow grin spreads back across the doctor’s face. He is clearly enamored by Monty’s defensiveness.

“Shall we take this elsewhere?”

"There were times when I wouldn't have minded taking you right here on the table, but... yeah. We should." He's not blushing as he says it. No regrets about that part of his past, and he knows he put on a good show for any onlookers back then.

After making a quick exit from the Raven, it isn’t long before Monty finds himself following Julian back to his place, the door unlocked to a darkened room. Rushing in to light lamps about the room, it quickly becomes apparent that the doctor was not expecting company. On nearly every surface, tables, chairs, shelving, are open books and paperwork. All medically related in some shape or form, from anatomical illustrations to very boring looking books with nothing but small lettering, as well as the doctor’s scratchy notes.

“My apologies for the, uh, clutter.”

-

As it turned out, the clutter didn't matter.

Devorak's boots, pants, and undergarments ended up joining the pile of medical texts shortly after. It should have been no surprise that the doctor kept rope stored away by his bedside, along with other interesting devices that were hopefully for his patients. Montag had been right about logistical concerns, as it turned out, needing more than a little guidance from the doctor as they proceeded, but even he had been impressed by his ability to negotiate with a rope around lanky limbs. It had taken a while, but before either of them knew, they had easily fell back into the swing of things.

Julian rubs idly at his wrists, now freed, laying curled around Monty's chest. At least they had made it to the bed. With a contented sigh, the naked redhead turns to look up at the man who surprised him by managing to lead after all.

"Well then..." He breathes, bliss still at the helm of his mind.

It had been just as they always had been, except nothing like it at all.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?" the blond says softly. It was what he clung to as he followed Devorak's wishes, desires he knew so well. Jules had been too hungry, too starved to even register the limp thing between his lover's legs.  _ Another part of my mother's curse? Or just… _

He ruffles the red hair. Forces a smile on his lips.

Monty had done what Lucio enjoyed doing so much. Being a commanding presence to a willing underling was still something he could do if he needed to, much to his surprise. He had tried to remember how Lucio, how  _ he _ had been with people in the end, pretended that Jules wasn't the sweet lost fool he still was and probably always would be, and decided to just play that memory that felt so much like another person for a while. Monty had sat back and watched his hands as they did  _ things _ , listened to the words that came out as curses or worse, and he watched how  _ high _ Jules got of it, a drug the doctor had long craved and foregone.

He could do it, probably, if it had to be, but…

A part of him feels like crying.

Julian’s eyes are shut to his distress, however, a cheekbone pressing into Monty’s collar with a satisfied hum in response. Damp with sweat that stuck bare skin to his shirt, the doctor also doesn’t seem to care that his new companion has remained fully clothed. Then again, Julian really doesn’t seem to care much about anything in that moment, really.

“If that was you rusty, I have a few questions about what you were up to for so long living by yourself in those woods.” Long body languid across the blond, Devorak seems to want nothing more than the warmth of the man’s arm wrapped around him. If only he knew whose arm that it really was. Monty felt like a surrogate for himself, no, for a man who had died years ago.

"I had quite a bit of training before. Muscle memory or something." A kiss on the red curls. He's glad there was no chance to undress him, to let the doctor see the scars on his abdomen. There would have been questions, and he had no answers for one who really wanted to know.  _ An augur wanted to read my entrails _ ? That might kind of work, mainly because most would probably ask what an  _ augur _ was first, and then he could start telling gruesome stories from things he'd seen in the wars, and then most didn't want to listen anymore. Most probably wouldn't care anyway. Jules would, that he was sure of, just out of professional interest, and then doubt he could have survived this without magic, and then…

Coming here was a mistake.

A knocking suddenly sounds from the front door, tearing the regret from his mind. 

“Doctor Devorak?” A voice calls muffled through the door beyond.

Jumping straight off of the bed, Devorak nearly runs straight for it, before pausing with the realization that he is still in the nude. The voice is just too stifled to hear anything but a very stern voice calling his name urgently. Grabbing pants in a rush from the floor, he has just enough time to shove himself back into the dark slacks before answering the call.

Montag can only hear the murmurs from the bedroom, voices suddenly surprisingly respectful sounding, and not at all a cadre of guards there to suddenly cart him away. Muffled affirmations are all he could make out, before the door shuts. A moment later, The doctor steps back into the bedroom, demeanor changed. Having straightened, clearly decided on ignoring the fact that he is wearing next to nothing, his slacks nearly hang off of his ass. After a brief moment and a look back to Montag, Julian gives him a sultry gaze, before giving him a crestfallen sigh, finally having recovered enough his senses.

“I have been called to the Palace.”

"You have? Oh." The blond blinks, still dazed. "Yes. Of course you have. That is just what happens to you."

_ Noddy still having her headaches? So I wasn't the reason. Ha. And now I... right. I need to leave. Jules is politely trying to throw me out. Cute. Smile, Monty. You wanted to leave anyway. _ "Let me just get my clothes in order and I'll be out of the door in no time, okay?"

Immediately, Julian rushes over to him, running a hand down his arm reassuringly."If it were up to me, I'd have you stay the night," A laugh, "Tie you to the bed so you can't leave." A pause, the doctor trying to gauge the humor in the moment, before cutting himself off by leaning in and kissing Monty passionately.

The dead man's response is just as enthusiastic. He  _ wants _ it to be, wants it so much, not that silly sad emptiness that sits in his chest.

-

Montag only hears the front door of the shop close as he comes in through the back, finally returning from the doctor’s, so he doesn’t see what has just transpired. What he does see, however, is a listless Asra sat at the table, with a stare that could bore a hole into the wall, breath noticeably hard and body tense. A sizable bag of coin is before him, most likely from whoever it was that had just exited the shop. The magician doesn’t look up, utters no greeting, hardly moves. His expression is pained, as if someone had discreetly stabbed him.

"Hey Boss."

_ Somebody died. He made somebody die, and he just got payment for it, and now he feels guilty, but that won't last long if the coin was as good as it looks. _

Monty just carries on to unload what he bought earlier, bread and pumpkin and garlic and fruit and soap, because they ran out, and then slowly inhales. It's probably just fair to ask.

"Want tea? Or a drink?"

Even still, the magician barely registers the question, a few more moments passing before his hand resting on the table balls into a fist. The pained expression melts into one of utter remorse.

"I told him it couldn't be done..." The words fell scratchily from his throat, and Monty watches as Asra slowly begins to curl up on himself. "No  _ human _ can accomplish it," His hand moves to cover his face in a bout of anguish. "He didn't believe me. And he's  _ right _ but..." Beside himself, Asra looks sorrowfully up at the man that was once Lucio. Eyes more tired than Montag has seen him in recent memory.

"No one should be brought back from the dead." Eyes glazing over with unshed tears, Asra lets his head fall into his hands.

"So a drink. Okay." The dead man pours two and brings the bottle.

"Think he knew who he was asking? Or was it just an unhappy accident?"

The sound of the glasses on the table rouses the magician from his hands.

"He had no idea. He wasn't even here to ask me about that." Staring at the liquid in the glass idly, Asra tries to form words and fails. Shifting in his seat, his gaze falls into his lap.

"His lover died. In an accident." If anything, Montag can see the magician try to detach from the words as he says them, but the latent discomfort underlying his tone sticks.

"What did he leave the coin for if you couldn't help then?"

“I told him how.”

_ ‘Quite easy, my dude. Just find someone who really wants to live and take a lot of his money and cheat him on what you promised him. Sleep with his wife for good measure, while you're at it, and maybe help ruining his good repute with the people he knows.’ Something like that, with your charming little grin? _

"Cheers," Monty says and drinks, washing away the bitterness that rises like bile in his throat.

“It won’t work. I told him that.” Asra follows up defensively. Grabs the glass, but doesn’t drink. “At first, he wanted a reading, but he broke down into tears and told me what had happened. Finally, he asked me if I could do anything, and I said no... And he  _ begged _ me for anything.” An unsure look passes over his face. “He asked ‘Have you ever lost anyone you loved?’ And I-“ 

The strain creeps back into his voice, cutting short.

“I said yes. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Finally, Asra takes a drink.

“It won’t work for him though, not unless he can make contact with the Arcana,” He shoots a look at Montag. “And a few other things.”

"Ah, can't recommend. Dying not coming back from it. Not a very pleasant experience." The blond grins. "And he still left you money? Very polite, I wouldn't have reacted that kindly, but you already know that."

_ Are you feeling guilty, Asra? Just the tiniest bit? Nah, can't be. _

Brows raise at the grin, and the magician softens slightly. Words on the tip of his tongue never make it out as he takes another drink instead. Still hollowed out, Asra pokes the bag slightly.

"Desperate people do desperate things." Although obvious, the simple statement carries the weight of the past several years between them. With the words hanging in the air, he hesitantly meets Monty's gaze. There is something in it, something more that the dead man hasn't seen before. Maybe it was understanding.

"So do those who want to make sure everyone gets what they deserve, including themselves."  _ Maybe especially themselves. Both love and revenge, thanks mother. Thank you too, Asra. Was that your plan from the start, talking of it? Getting close to me so you could get your love back? Or was that just a nice side effect? _

“Is there something you want to ask me, Lucio? It’s written all over your face.” Asra deadpans with a vague smirk, addressing Monty as such for the first time since his arrival.

"Don't call me that, Boss. Don't."

_ Asshole. _

"And I really don't know if I want to know the answer. Knowing might break a few things."

Surprised, Asra plays it off, idly swirling the remaining liquid in his glass.

"Like what?"

_ Me not cutting your throat while you sleep. _

"I might take less care to keep the floors clean. Always burn the food a little. Petty things like that." He forces a grin.

“I see.”

The magician grows quiet, leaving the room in another weighted silence. Fatigue catching up to him again, he stands with a yawn.

“I’m going up.” Leaving the room, he calls.

“The coin is yours.”

_ Guilty money. Wasn't there some story about thirty silver pieces? _ Monty clenches his teeth. This feels... unfair. Undeserved, even. He spills them on the table and starts counting.


	6. Chapter 6

With a wave of Asra’s fingertips, the lights in the front of the shop dim to darkness. They had closed. It had not been the busiest of days, but hardly the slowest of the past few weeks either. They were in actual need to restock several items, some of which were not the easiest to find. There was a veritable crowd of regulars that came in from day to day now, and not just for readings anymore, but for books, and kitch, and the magician isn’t sure if he is excited about it or not. Of course, there is a portion of him that is relieved to be finally making a real _ profit _, and that he has help for this endeavor. However, there is another portion of him that is fully aware that the only real reason why the magic shop has been as lucrative as it has been is due to his new… assistant. Damn, if that man knows who to sell something, even if he knows next to nothing about it.

Speaking of which, Lucio… _ Monty _, cleans up the back from the last spell candle Asra had to make. The spilled wax used to spark some kind of fascination within the magician, but nowadays it was always scraped off from the furniture before whatever leftover magic hung around it could stick. Most likely for the best anyway.

Out of curiosity at that, Asra makes his way past the curtain to check on the other occupant of the shop. There had been one uncomfortable exchange again during the day, yet another question regarding the former in-house proprietor of the shop. They never visited, not anymore, but all of Vesuvia was aware that there was a festival coming up marking the 3rd anniversary of their marriage to the Countess. 

It rubs Asra’s fur the wrong way, and he nearly wished Monty was better with magic, enough to take care of the shop while Asra ran away for a while, to Muriel’s or… elsewhere.

Either way, he finds Lucio finishing up, organizing the magician’s tools back into their respective places. The backroom is once again clean.

“Looks good.”

"No, you look good." Fingerguns. The blond doesn't even look, but then of course Asra looks good, he can't help himself. "But you aren't quite here this week, are you, boss? Getting sick?"

With a curious look, the magician shakes his head, blatantly ignoring the compliment.  
“No? Why do you say that?” Idly, he wakes up the stove salamander and grabs the kettle. Already, latent tension makes itself known.  
"You're cranky, silent, wake up at night and have a hard time getting back to sleep, which is why you wake me up when you walk around, and your mood is just... off. Trust me, I know about feeling sick."  
“I’m not sick.”  
_ Damn, is it that obvious? _ Asra wonders, peeking a look away from the stove to his former nemesis.  
“I’m just... tired.” Not a good enough answer, he rolls his eyes. “Of being here. I think I need a break. I might head out somewhere for a while, with Faust.” Asra hopes that, for once, his usual avoidant self is taken at face value.  
"Trying to avoid the festivities? And here I am, hoping we could get drunk together, making obscene gestures at our exes. Would be a pity if you were too tired for that." Still, Lucio is _ not looking _, graciously avoiding a magician having to save face.

“Let’s... not?” Already antsy, Asra is listless before the stove, waiting for the water to boil. He nearly forgets that it would help if he had tea to place in the pot. Turning sharply, he moves to grab some. Something calming, hopefully, and aromatic. Searching through a cupboard, he sighs.

“You _ are _ aware who this shop still technically belongs to, right?” He turns to Monty in full this time. “Because it is not me.”

"We could wish them the best of luck, for all I care. That might actually be nice. I mean, if you do it, of course. And if you mean it."

Agitated, Asra turns back around to the stack of teas he’s collected.

“They won’t want to see me.” He replies in more of a mutter, as he finally pulls out a tin of something old looking. 

“Do you think you could manage the shop if I leave for a while?” 

"Let's send them a present. Something considerate. I won't suggest emeralds, that would be for Noddy, but... you know. Something nice for the loving couple, because you bear no ill will." Lucio trying to sound reasonable still sounds wrong. Asra’s distaste is tangible.

“The _ best _ gift either of us could give them is continuing to run the shop successfully. That’s all.” The finality to his tone is oddly striking.

"You know what I'm gonna ask now, right?"

Head falling forward, Asra turns back away from Monty. If he didn’t know better, he would have said that the magician had spent too much time around the doctor to be acting as dramatic as he was. 

“You know, I’m perfectly confident you can run the shop without me for a week.” The magician nods to himself as the water finally begins to boil.

"You--" Monty's voice is tinged with amazement. "You are feeling _ guilty _ , aren't you? Whatever happened was _ your _ fault, and you _ know _it."

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Tone straining in a way that Monty, even as Lucio, had never heard before.

"Of course you don't want to. Just leave for a while. At least I probably won't be dead when you return, right?" He _ knows _ that's cruel, but somehow it feels better to provoke him then just letting him flee.

With a shatter, Asra fumbles the teacup he has just pulled from the shelf. It breaks into a thousand tiny fragments. For a brief instant, Lucio thinks that Asra is wilting into a sob as his shoulders slump inward and his head hangs forward. With a deep breath, the magician whips around, livid. The screaming of the kettle only accents the hate in his eyes.

“That’s _ impossible _ , because there’s no asshole running around spreading the Plague like an idiot, and if there _ were _ , I would make sure that person got to shove a damned plague beetle down your throat so you would get sick again and finally _ die _.”

Huffing, flicks his wrist and snuffs out the flame from the stove, silencing the ear splitting whistle.

"_ I didn't know _ ." Monty says tonelessly. "And that's the difference, Asra. I wouldn't have sat and watch my own city die if I did. There would have been so many better things to do with that money. I understand Lucio is the bad guy in this story, but that doesn't make everyone else a radiant hero without flaws. Get over yourself just _ once _, Asra. You did too much for them to be like this now, regardless of what happened."

“You don’t know what happened!” A fist bangs against the counter, realizing too late the shards are everywhere, and lets out a sharp cry as some embed themselves into his hand. Adding injury to insult.

With a grit of his teeth, Asra pulls away to cradle his hand. In spite of his pain, he still manages to glare at the blond for a moment. “You ‘didn’t know’, and you still don’t...” Tears welling in the corners of his eyes, he studies his hand as a small trickle of blood eeks down.

“... Because you _ can’t _.” At this, his voice actually breaks, and a mean flush overtakes his face. Without looking over to Monty, he begins to pluck the porcelain shards out of his hand, blinking through the tears.

“You don’t know-“ Asra cringes as he pulls, “What it’s like to give everything up to—“ Another cringe, “— someone you love, to have _ none _ of it matter...” Asra scowls at his bleeding hand. 

"I seized this city just to impress a girl who never particularly liked me," the blond comments drily. _ Probably should have done that for Jules instead. _ "Now you. What happened?"

Bitterly, the magician turns a shoulder away, plucking out the last few pieces of broken porcelain from his hand. He can keep up the anger, resentment, and hatred, all directed at a ‘character in a story’ that technically didn’t exist anymore… _ Can people change? _ Or, he can try letting his guard down, even if it feels like standing stark naked in front of Montag. Which, honestly, he would actually prefer. Grabbing a towel, Asra wipes away the blood.

What harm could Monty actually do, besides tease him to death? No one knew who he was anymore.

“I… made a mistake. About a year ago... _ Yes _, I feel guilty about it. I overstepped a boundary that I shouldn’t have.” The admission comes softly, waiting for a blow to land.

"_ And then? _"

Asra looks up at Montag, surprised. It could be his sincerity, or patience. Sighing to himself, he carefully pours some of the steaming water onto the towel, waiting several moments in silence for it to cool, before bringing it back to his injured hand. Contemplation has sized his expression, gaze vacant despite the twinge of pain that flickers through him as he tosses aside the towel. Reaching back into a cupboard, he pulls out a small jar. Unscrewing the lid, he takes his time applying the salve it holds to the puncture wounds. It’s only after he finishes, setting the jar down amongst the broken cup, that he looks back to the blond.

“It’s one thing to bring someone back to life that never asked to be… That’s something onto itself.” The corners of his eyes crinkle, face pained, as the magician looks down to the ground. “… It’s another to keep trying to make up for it by becoming too… involved, when never asked to be.” Asra gazes up pleadingly. “I was just trying to help. I know things are different from when they were before,” His tone sounds as if he’s said all of this before, several times, except for a pause that follows where he looks the man before him over, “Obviously. I just wanted to make sure they were okay. I didn’t think I was being evasive.” Asra, again, grows flush. “Now neither of them will speak to me.”

He sighs, scowling again. “There, are you happy?”

"Why should that make me happy? I never was into that whole _ emotional torture _ thing, if you remember. Good old fashioned perversions, sure, but not emotional distress. And your plan is to run away, so you can be mad at yourself in peace for a few days? Just so I get it right."

There was something about being around Monty that always made Asra feel completely put on the spot, eyes wide. He wants to mention Lucio’s lack of care of other people’s lives, or the amount of pain he inflicted on those who didn’t comply with his demands, but he isn’t exactly wrong. Everything he did was driven out of self serving desires, and maybe, also, the need to be liked.

Flexing his hand testingly, the magician shrugs.

“I just think it might be better for everyone else if I wasn’t here.” 

"Why do you think they let you keep the shop after the fallout, mh?"

With a deep inhale, the magician closes his eyes. His brows and shoulders relax.

“This is why the shop has to run well.”

"I looked through your books. It's like having the courtiers run an enterprise all over again, just this time in a scope I can understand. You're not here because of that."

“I _ need _ to run the shop well.” The comment sounds almost desperate, even if Asra’s face remains calm. 

"Then stop running." Monty's admonishment sounds softer than anything Lucio ever managed.

It takes the magician aback, staring at the blond, opening his mouth as if to speak, to say something, a quip, a complaint, anything, but fails. He’s left speechless as moments slip by, his words having escaped him. Finally, with a subtle shake of the head, he looks down at his hand again.

“… I’m going for a bandage.” Shutting his eyes once more, he sighs in exasperation as he gestures to the mess still on the counter. “And I’ll clean this up.”

Monty decides to stay seated for a while longer, irritated at first about this reaction. He expected anger. Being thrown out, really, but not a magician being like _ this _ . Briefly he wonders if he should go and see how Asra is doing, but then he just remains where he is and feels a little _ wise _, just because it seems like an okay thing to do for once.

Meanwhile, said magician is staring at the puncture wounds. They still bleed, but aren’t terribly deep. He will have to call Ilya to look at it sooner than later. The salve has lessened the pain, at least.

Yet, burning its way through him was a frustration, newly lit. Not directed not Lucio, surprisingly, but himself.

For once, this was not the dead man’s fault. Even if Asra’s tried to pin it on him, it came down to the fact that he allowed Lucio to get a rise out of him. Then, of all things, the dead goat comes off... understanding? A strange sensation sits inside the magician, like he is spun around, as if he swallowed wrong, throat tight, or if someone had ripped his chest open, leaving his heart exposed, what’s left of it, left beating out in the open for _ someone _ to see.

As he looked for a bandage, Asra could feel himself flush again. It was weird dealing with Montag, and the more he had to, the less he knew how to feel about the man who was once Lucio. 

“Stop running.” Asra mouths to himself, finally finding a roll of gauze.

-

It's about half an hour later that someone knocks on the door of the bedroom. "Hey, boss? I forgot to tell you something. You wanna hear?"

Tensing on the other side of the door, Asra is about to snap back a ‘no’, before he catches himself. Every fiber of his being wants to just _ go _ , and finally be rid of the shop and leave all of Vesuvia behind him. He wants to undo Morga’s spell, and out Monty as a dirty liar to the world and win the trust of their exes back. He had also considered telling Lucio the truth, that he wasn’t actually bound to him, throwing the pitiful former Count back on the street. Sadly, none of these options are somehow _ good enough _, and something inside the magician wants to prove the dead man wrong, that he is the better person, that their exes will speak to him again. That he is more worthy of redemption than he felt Monty was being at the moment, at least.

Suddenly, he is overwhelmed with the urge to bid the man come in, sit with him and talk, maybe stay, maybe hold hi- 

“What is it?” Asra answers plainly, happy his conflicting emotion is hidden behind a door. 

"Found an old stash of yours. Smells like it's still good. How about we close shop and relax a bit, instead of being kind of emotional and all over the place?"

The silence that follows the question is long enough for Monty to consider walking away, when the door opens.

“Where did I leave it?”

Asra leans on the doorway casually.

"A glass in the spice rack, hidden away under some ancient coriander. Was cleaning that out recently, because a lot of things in there were basically mummified, but then I find that little package wrapped in waxed linen under the herbs and think to myself 'Where does the sage hide a leaf? Right, in the forest.' and open it up, and... well. I was right."

A laugh escapes Asra’s lips before he can help it. The look he gives Monty in that moment is one the dead man has never received from the magician before. A smile, a small, coy smile with a considering tilt, but a smile nonetheless.

“Alright.”

He gestures the blond in with a nod of his head, slipping off the door frame and back into the bedroom.

Monty has brought a pipe, a long one Asra once traded with a customer for a reading, because being prepared is half the battle, and steps unto this unknown territory with a wide grin. "So this is the place where the magic happens, huh?"

“I assumed you of all people would know by now that ‘the magic’ happens all over the shop.”

Asra sits smugly on the bed, leaving a spot beside him.

"That explains some of the crusts I scratched off. Would you kindly do the honors?" Monty joins him on the mattress, leaving his shoes at the door.

It doesn’t take long for Asra to prep the pipe, drawing his legs in just before bringing it to his lips and lighting. A moment later, the smoke swirls around the two of them as he slowly exhales. Again, the tension leaves his form, but this time in earnest. Turning to Monty, he holds it out for him to lean into, not expecting him to be able to light and hold with a single arm.

The blond inhales, tries to hold down the smoke and starts coughing, tears in his eyes. Not used to it anymore after all the fresh air he got on the road.

“Rusty?“ Asra giggles. Already, the magician feels a little... lighter. Maybe even distracted, by the way the dead man casts weight on the mattress. Very real, even still.

"Feels like the first. Shit." Monty presses his hand to his chest. "Stings. This used to be more fun."

“Give it a minute.” The magician feels the urge to pat the man on the back, but realizes he is already doing it. Then decides to hold back from going for a second round immediately.

Maybe there was a reason he had ‘misplaced’ this stuff.

"Are we getting too old for this, Asra? I mean, seriously this time? With all the other stuff I was on back then, this was just a little relief, nothing more." He drops backwards onto the bed.

A scoff precedes Asra’s laugh, and he leans over Monty to look down at him.

“Maybe, but you weren’t exactly going to live to be too old for this, remember?”

"Yes," the blond answers darkly. "Very vividly. But didn't we all think so? Just waiting for the inevitable and making it as pleasant as possible."

Asra deflates, before shifting his weight and finally lighting up for the second time. This time, he too coughs before long. The sensation is intensified, and he can feel the growing distance between his thoughts and concerns. Like smoke, it curls out of him winding and twisting, and it brings him right down beside Montag, facing up at the ceiling. Once his coughing subsides, he sighs pleasantly.

“If you could, would you undo your mother’s curse?” It slips out from his lips as he continues to stare up at the ceiling. 

The other is silent for a while. Slowly, very slowly, decides that the honest answer is "I don't know. By now, I really don't. A few weeks ago, I would have said yeah, of course, back on the throne in best form, with a roof over your head and the pockets full of money, but by now... the lack of bloodshed and cruelty is kinda nice, and so is the lack of women throwing themselves at my feet. Actually being able to see where you are going, you know?*

This gets another laugh out of Asra, sensibility so divorced from his concern at the answer that he turns to look at the former count from his spot beside him only to go, “What, you haven’t tried out if you prefer your own name yet still?” The magician teases, before leaning in to brush his lips against the blond’s ear.

“_ Oh Montag. _”

"I _ don't _ ." He tenses up. " _ Monty _ is fine. Doesn't need an _ oh _ before it. Or do you need that?" His fingers run along the magician's cheek. " _ Oh Asra... _" he breathes. 

The flush that creeps across his cheeks fully encompasses his face. Widened eyes narrow in retaliation. “_ Monty _...” He breathes, leaning in closer. A second more, and Asra bursts into a fit of laughter. It hides the strange growing relief he feels that the man beside him might actually enjoy being there. Getting comfortable, he stays close.

“You can’t tell me you don’t enjoy the way customers have been flocking to see you.”

"Well, _ flocking _ is an utter exaggeration, and you know it. I'm just trying to do a decent job, and that's all it took. And a tight pair of buns."

Another scoff exits the magician.

“There are way more customers than there used to be, at least.”

Asra grows quiet then, mind finally touching on their earlier conversation. Bringing up his hand he looks at the bandage, sporting slight flecks if red still. He sighs in exasperation. 

"So, what you gonna give them?" At this, Asra is at a loss, letting the injured hand fall to his chest.

“Space.” He answers flatly, before adding “I don’t know.”

"It's not easy, I’ll admit that. Probably shouldn't be too grand or dramatic, they both don't seem to get the allure of that anymore."

A faint laugh out escapes the magician. 

“No, no one is terribly into red and gold statues anymore.” A hum, and Asra looks over to Monty. “Nothing magical.”

"Something that's like cozy warm woolen socks. Reasonable. Saying that you want them to be well on their own terms," the blond muses.

“I can’t knit them a _ sweater _ … And nothing nostalgic.” Asra adds, before frowning. This was someone to whom everything became nostalgic. Sitting up, he leans over Monty again, holding out the pipe for the blond, his gaze pleading. “Are you sure I can’t just skip town for a _ day _?” 

"Yup. You stay. Maybe a collection of teas? Let's question ourselves _ WWJD _." He takes a little drag, already having an easier time keeping it down. "What would Jules do. He's just the worst at romantic presents, but really good at considerate ones."

Asra picks up where the blond leaves off with the pipe. Hit with a terrible and strange mix of both familiarity and pleasantness as he exhales, he tries not to reflect on just how much he enjoys this over the last time the two of them had sat in a bed together growing increasingly inebriated. It was almost as if the magician could forget who the blond had been, and it left him with the urge to run a hand through the other’s beard, leaning in and-

“Ilya. Well, he would just go out of his way to acquire some impossible to find thing in the Red Market and--” Perking up, the magician considers. “Oh.”

"Mh?"

“Did you and Nadi ever have custom champagne flutes made of Prakran glass?”

"I had that nasty habit of throwing away glasses when I was finished drinking for the night, you remember? Just over the shoulder, for luck. If we had any, the servants probably hid them away somewhere."

“Well, I know both of their favorite colors, and Ilya and Portia someone who can obtain the glass,” Of course, Asra isn’t too sure how exactly _ they _ knew that person, nor does he really want to. “How does that sound?”

"Do you want to make it themed after their _ Arcana _? So they still know it's coming from you?"

Asra hates how good of an idea that is. Crestfallen, the magician gives a nod. “That’s perfect.” 

"Sounds like something Noddy will claim to find a bit cheesy, but still really like deep down." A smug smile. Back then, Lucio enjoyed getting her things she claimed to dislike, but still loved. Feeding into her guilty pleasures was a major one for him.

“If I know anything about my former apprentice, it’s that they’ll convince Nadia to use them all of the time.” With a bittersweet smile, Asra sighs. “I…” Trailing off, he places an arm across Monty’s form, leaning directly over him, if he were only to lean down...

“Why are you being so helpful?”

"Growing soft with age, probably." The grin isn't quite on point this time. " It may help to have been away from court for a good while. Not being bonded with dark powers, too. Spoils the character a bit, that." He reaches up and ruffles the white curls.

Asra looks as if he wants to say something else, _ do _ something else, lips parting, before he pulls back, looking at the remnants of what is left in the pipe. Only ash. It’s strange not to know if he wants to extend the conversation or not.

“From what I gathered, that was your own doing.” Too easily, he turns back to old habits.

"I wasn't exactly innocent, true, but I didn't force their fates upon them, if you mean that. Easily swayed, or, in case of the courtiers, been there before."

“But it was selfish--” Tensing, the magician’s brow knits as he cuts himself short, feeling his old train of thought come back around. “I’ll reach out to Ilya, I need him to take a look at this anyway.” Asra raises his bandaged hand, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “If you want, you can stay here tonight instead of the storage closet,” He says while looking as if about to run out of the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, “I’m going to step out.” 

"I won't. It's your room. And are you really telling me I make selfish decisions? Me, the patron saint of unnecessary decadence? That truly hurts."

Asra only looks more lost, looking back between Monty, the door, and his hand, conflict directly playing across his features. He wants to retort that he never forced anyone’s fate on them either, but he knows that to be a lie, and it threatens to choke the words in his throat. He wants the man to stay, and yet, he wants nothing more than for him to leave. He had said to ‘Stop running.’ Who was Monty and what had he done with Lucio?

“Fine. Don’t take the room. Leave. Just don’t throw it back in my face later.” He shrugs, looking away.

"That I was such a bad dog that I wasn't allowed to stay in the boss' bed? I won't, Asra, I won't." The blond sits up slowly. Stretches. "When will you be back?"

Asra stands, and quickly puts together a bag that he has very quickly decided he wants to take to Muriel’s. This should clear his head, or so he hopes. Finishing, he stands in the doorway, turning back to look at Monty.

“Tomorrow, or the day after. Not long.” More than anything else, he just needs to be away. 

Away from the man that the magician is falling for.

"Promise?" the blond asks. Shakes his head then. "No. Wait. Don't. Not to me, at least. Your life, and you're a big boy, right, Asra?"

The look on the blond’s face in that moment moves his heart to flutter, and as much as Asra hates it, the magician just manages not to walk up to Monty and kiss him on the spot.  
“Right.”  
Turning to leave, he pauses and regards him again. _ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Take care of the shop.’ _ _  
_“See you soon.”


	7. Chapter 7

Asra walks away, descending the stairs, and leaves. Montag can tell as much by the way the door sounds as it is closed and locked. He sits on the bed, relatively confused, but pleasantly relaxed from the herb.

The bed beneath him is comfortable, more so than the storage space that he had come to occupy, and he just can’t find the urge to vacate the space in a hurry. He certainly isn’t going to fall asleep there, as he had told the magician, but nobody said he wasn’t allowed to recline there for a little while longer.

The room is lived in, and not entirely cluttered like the rest of the shop was when he arrived, but none any cleaner either. In Asra’s absence, Monty notices that it’s pretty cosy, if not quaint.

He lays his head back and stares up at the ceiling, waiting for the magician to return, tail between his legs. There’s a significant lack of presence beside him then, he notes, and wonders what it might be like to be a magician himself. Knowing things. Sensing people. Things that aren’t people, but behave like them. He sinks into the bed.

It’s all too quickly that, in a somewhat predictable fashion, Montag nods off.

When he awakes again, it's in the storage space to a normal day. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, he is already dressed, and has fallen asleep in his clothes. The shop’s owner is nowhere to be seen. _This is fine._

Quickly he rises, because it's certainly late, too late, he just knows it is, but he also _knows_ no one is present to open up except for him and that there is _someone_ waiting, and he runs to the front door. Finds it unlocked. _This is fine._ Montag opens it to a landscape very unlike the one that normally lies beyond the front door. Not cobblestone, but endless dunes of white sand under a very blue sky.

"Now this is just silly," he grumbles. A magician's herb. What else should he expect? By now he's aware that he's dreaming, which is exceedingly rare, and usually his dreams aren't of pleasant deserts with white sands and way too blue skies, but of things that have happened in his lives and inbetween and of his mother and those who came before. Those are the worst.

With a slight groan, he closes the door on the strange scene. _ No, thank you. You will only get worse, no matter how pretty you pretend to be. I will... open my eyes. Now_.

With a start, Montag awakes, sure enough still facing up at the ceiling of Asra’s room. _Of course I am. Here. As I should be. Damn.   
_Something like a knot sits between his shoulders, maybe from some unfulfilled expectation he didn't even know he had, or maybe just from a nap on a way too soft mattress. He feels odd, like he's not quite awake yet, or like when one wakes in the middle of the night and the world is not quite the same as one is usually living in, and is quick to decide to sleep that very unpleasant side effect off, down in his usual hard spot between the boxes. _This is life now. This is fine._

-

He had changed.

It had taken Asra a painfully long time to notice it. Muriel was still _ him_, tender and caring when he needed to be, but the bear didn't _ need _ him anymore, not like he used to.

It hurt.

The fire in his hut was still warm, and still welcoming, but the calm man he thought he knew so well, felt so... different. All the desperate _ need _ Muriel had felt for so many years to be there for him had slowly evaporated like a puddle in the sun, and yet, he was still _ there _ when he needed him.

Which is good, Asra tries to tell himself. He is glad his oldest, closest friend, has grown over the past several years. Of course he is. Muriel has become a venerable sorcerer or sorts in his own right, his magic even different from that of the magician. Sourced from nature itself, it is a steadily running river with a deceptively cutting current. Asra always found himself taken in by it, running through him as a force of nature, riding its highs and lows entranced. It always left him feeling lighter, somehow, and exhausted.

Sitting beside Inanna before the fire, Asra wiped some still pooling sweat about his brow, traces of their most recent spell circle still smudged about his arms and face. Staring into the fire, Asra’s thoughts briefly touch upon his hire, presently watching the shop.  
“You know, Muriel, I’ve been thinking...”

"You have?"  
The scarred skin is shimmering in the red flicker. The bear is still lying on the furs on the ground, the symbols drawn on his body smeared and half washed away by now, eyes closed. _ Relaxed _.  
He seems heavier than the world around him, more dense, more _ real _, and where Asra's magic is words and sparkling lights, Muriel's is ashes and embers and blood. He never quite told the magician who told him, and Asra never had the heart to ask.

Maybe it is for this reason why, head still light as those same embers fade, Asra dares to speak the next words:“My new assistant is cursed, I’m sure you’ve noticed it.” 

"Is that why you took him in?" _ Is it your fault again? Another story like the one we know too well? _

For only a moment, the magician takes pause, before nodding. As a deep flush grows across his cheeks, he gives the bear a curious look. “But I don’t know how.”

"How _ what _ ?" _ How you can help him? How he was cursed? How it is that you can't help yourself from people like him? _

Asra looks away. “I don’t know,” Reaching out, he pets Inanna behind her ear. She looks somewhat disturbed, but otherwise nonplused. “I was hoping you could help me.”  
Sure, what Asra was proposing could potentially make things... complicated. Not that they weren’t already. Monty was learning magic now.

"Has _ he _ asked for your help?" A lazy gaze focuses on him, already expecting a truth Asra finds hard to tell.

“He wants to learn magic. I need to know if that’s a good idea.”

"You don't take apprentices." If Muriel had any sense of irony, the calm reminder might as well be that.

The magician’s entire body flinches, and he withdraws his hand from the soft fur suddenly. However, he only frowns, looking pointedly away. “He’s not an _ apprentice _. I don’t take them, no. But he’s learning it himself, with or without me.”  
Again, he looks at Muriel, this time pleadingly. “But I need to know if I need to _ do _ something about him.” The expression hardens. “Preemptively.” 

"You want me to judge if the world would be better off without him? Is that it, Asra?"

With a small hiss, the magician cringes again. “Yes.”  
Then, he scrambles over to Muriel’s side, placing a gentle touch to the bear’s chest. “My magic isn’t as equipped to sense what might be wrong, I’ve tried. Your magic might prove different.”

"I told you how your magic feels to me."

That he did, or rather, he showed him. How utterly _ wrong _ it felt to shape the world to shape the world to your own will against the ways it wanted to be, and while Asra had assured him that was kind of the point of the whole endeavor, it still had left a bad taste in his mouth for a few hours.  
There had been no plea to stop his ways in the arcane, just an explanation of facts.

“This isn’t about that. The cards have been reaching out to him. I need you to look at why.”

The bear grunts, He doesn't like that, but sometimes he likes precious little. "So, just an opinion? Nothing more?"

“An _ assessment.” _

"Can I do with him what needs to be done?"

Asra moves to curl up around Muriel, trying to get out of him any sort of warmth. The sort he missed receiving physically from the other. He tried to dwell on that, and not the on hopeful look in Monty’s eyes that had appeared as of late.

“Yes.”

"Do you _ like _ him?" The question hangs heavy in the air.

“He...” Asra hates how a flush returns to his face, and he looks away from Muriel. “He has the capacity to be a good person. I just need answers.”  
The answer in the non-answer is obvious, and Asra inwardly curses Monty for making him such a liar.

"Hrm."

Again, long silence, then the giant sits up. "Bring him here then, if you think so."  
Muriel is not angry with him. Asra knows that. But then, Muriel was never angry with him, just _ disappointed _, and even after the apprentice went away, that stayed. Admittedly, it might have something to do with the whole bringing-back-the-dead-shenanigans, when the magician had forgotten about anyone else but them and did anything with almost anyone to get some relief for a short while. He wasn't angry back then. Didn't tell him to stop, but he became more distant bit by bit, escalation by escalation, but he still remained at his side, right?

Either way, this time is _ different _ and Asra is hardly in the same dark place he had been during those miserable years. He knows Muriel can see it, and Asra moves to sit before his love to give him a look that says as much.

“Thank you.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Slight rain falls on cobblestone and dirt, and Vesuvia's citizens, being made out of sugar, do their best to avoid it. Rain is rare here, only becoming a visitor for longer periods every few years, so only few had the chance to get used to it.

Monty _ enjoys _ the weather. It is calm, and the white noise outside makes the inside even more cozy. He has lit some candles and incense and made some tea, all things he would have laughed about a few years ago, but now, firm in the ranks of those that own next to nothing, this feels very, very nice.

_ Am I getting old? I feel like it. Might take up knitting or something, in a rocking chair. With an open fireplace. Dogs at my feet. Might be nice. Maybe if everything was less of everything, and I was less full of memories of better times. _

He hears the door to the shop open, which isn’t strange being as early as it is, but Asra is predictably out, which leaves only Monty to see to the shop. A stout redhead humming a tune is paging through a list of enchantments at the counter. It’s Nadia’s dear _ attendant_. She doesn’t even look up as he comes through the curtain.

“Hellooo Asr— Oooh, you’re not Asra.” Oblivious as everyone else in Vesuvia, she perks up upon seeing a new face in the shop. “Hello anyway!” Approaching him, she gives him a warm smile and a wave, “I’m Portia! I work at the palace.” She gestures to her garb.

_ Ah, so this is where the money went. Right. I remember. Not only velvet and furs for me, but for everyone. What did Asra say she's now? Noddy's personal assistant? Yeah, I can see it. Exactly the type of huge adoring eyes she likes to have around. Must be in the family. _

"Hello there, young lady. How may I be of assistance?" A little, mocking bow and a winning grin. "The boss already told me that the Palace sometimes gives us the honors."

With a playful pout, she puts her hands on her hips, posturing in a faux condescension. Like she’d been around Valerius.

“Well, I _ honorably _ came to pick up a few items.” With a grin, she drops her arms, moving through her cloak to find a rather long list scribbled onto parchment. She passes it to Monty. “Is your ‘_ boss’ _ around?” A pause, where she kind of deflates, “Or is he off again on one of his adventures?”

"An adventure, I fear. Is it a well known habit of his?" _Of course, it is. So, what do we have here... oh my, that's a bunch of stuff. Noddy is taking her new witch queen status serious, it looks like. Or maybe it's for the kitchen? Most of it might be edible._

“It is enough that apparently he needed to hire somebody _ new _to help out around the shop.” Portia leans on the counter, giving the man a sort of a look he can’t quite discern.

“I can sense you came to ask for a reading and now are a little disappointed that his cards aren't there to give their advice." His face is all innocence.

“Oooh, so are _ you _ Asra’s new apprentice?” A glint in her eye sparkles, brows lifting as she casually leans on the counter.

"He doesn't take apprentices," Monty answers automatically, Asra having repeated that way too often. "And I didn't want to be one. This dog is too old for new tricks anyway."

“Old? Hardly.” With a smirk, Portia walks straight past Montag into the back room. Before asking, she pulls a cup from the shelf and pours herself some tea. “Oooh, this was a blend Asra was telling me about.”

"Then I hope you find it to your liking." _It's amazing how Noddy still finds your impertinence charming while mine makes me a horrible creature from the abyss. _

She doesn’t sit, standing by the table and taking a sip. “Mmm…” Her eyes shut happily. Then, her eyes flash open and she takes off her cloak and drapes it over the back of a seat. “You don’t mind me drying off, do you? I didn’t think it rained in Vesuvia. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it rain!” She goes on. Regardless of his answer, she is already getting comfortable in the back room, settling in at the table with her tea. “I’m guessing you can’t do readings then, huh?”

_ You couldn't see rain because you were too busy with keeping your foolish brother in check, and staring at my wife, from all I've seen.  
_He smiles. "I'm learning, at least bit by bit. Harder than it looks." Lucio wants to spit in her face and have her tortured for her behavior in other days, but Montag doesn't quite feel it. _ Has mother cut out so much of me that I can't even do that? _

“Would you wanna try?” Another cheeky smile, and the younger Devorak pulls out her own set of cards, distinctively different from that of the resident magician’s, and sets them on the table. “I was gifted a deck a while ago. Can’t read them for the life of me. They scare the pants off of Ilya,” She laughs to herself, before pausing, “Oh wait, have you met my brother? Tall. Gangly doctor. Looks like death warmed over?”

"May have seen him around, yeah. Being overly chatty on the marketplace, thinks black suits him?"

“Sounds like him.” A nod, another sip of tea, and Portia shifts in her seat. “How long have you worked here?” There it was again, that look in her eye. Suddenly, the question feels like part of a test.

"About... two months, I think?" This one is true. Time has passed astoundingly fast, because he's kept himself busy.

“I knew the baker had said something about Asra having some help around the shop again, and I thought ‘Muriel wouldn’t go shopping without Asra, would he?’ And I didn’t know if Muriel was still living at the shop still, even, and-“ At this point, the girl realizes that he is just sort of blinking at her, in what she thinks is confusion, but is actually annoyance. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

_ How does anyone talk so much in such little time?  
_The time on the road, sometimes not talking to anyone for weeks, has lowered his tolerance for the abundance of babble that still seems fashionable at the court. He used to like this, didn't he? Merrily chatting the day away.  
"Monty," he says gently, "my name is Monty. I clean and help with keeping shop, because the boss was so kind to take me in after I had fallen on hard times."

At this, Portia’s expression softens, and she practically coos at the man. “Oh no! Monty, I didn’t know it was like _ that _ , I’m so sorry.” That is to say, she apparently thought it was like something _ else. _“That is so nice of Asra,” she says in an aside to herself, the disbelieving tone underlying her comment impossible to miss. Turning back to Monty, she leans in. “Is he being good to you? I can get him into some trouble if he’s not.”

"Can you?" He chuckles. "That's very sweet of you, but not needed, thank you very much. He's barely at home, and when he's here, he's trying his best to be kind. You've known him for a while then?"

She hums in consideration. “About three or four years.”

"What happened back then? The time seems like an open wound."_Tell me your version, girl, it's probably very different from mine._

She shifts around uncomfortably. “What has Asra told _ you _?”

"That there was someone who owns this shop that is your boss now, and the reason he doesn't take apprentices." He stretches out his hand to take her deck, just to take a look. See how it feels in his hand. To _ listen _.

At this, she actually looks surprised. “Oh,” Portia watches him hold the cards. “That’s true. Basically, there was a kind of... falling out.”

"What did you think he'd tell me, Lady Portia?" _ You have my attention girl. Look at me. Every ounce of it. _

For all that it is worth, the redhead can only see a very attentive and fairly attractive older man standing before her. It is as if he had been looking for answers to questions that had been piling up for months, but being around Asra was like that. She takes a sip of tea, before leaning in again.  
“And did he mention that the two of them were kind of, you know, a thing? _ Years _ ago.” She looks at Monty questioningly, before her expression falls sympathetic. “You know… Before the Plague?” She shifts again, looking as if she wants to warn him. “Asra, well, he never totally got over it.” She shrugs. “He’s dated around after that, broke my brother’s heart, put his magic foot in his mouth on occasion. I’ve always felt for Muriel, he tries so hard to make it work with Asra. And his chickens are so cute--” Portia realizes that she is rambling again, and stops. “That’s the gist of it. Asra is a wonderful magician. He was left to run the shop _ because _ we all know that, deep down, he really wants to do the right thing.” She rolls her eyes, “It’s just… surprising to see him actually commit to it sometimes.”  
A nervous giggle follows, as Portia realizes she’s said too much. “But that’s why _ you’re _ here!” She exclaims happily.

"You think so, young lady? Because the boss wants to do the right thing?" _ Is that what you gonna tell Noddy? That Asra took in a homeless cripple out of the kindness of his heart? Dammit, I wanna see her face when she hears that. _ "I wondered what it was he wasn't telling me. Thought it might be something like that, a heart not properly healed and making bad decisions because of it, while everyone else just looks and wonders why."

“Something like that.” She says mopily, before picking right back up. “What do the cards say about it?”

"I haven't asked them, to be honest. Felt weird to do so?" He looks a bit lost, a look she knows so well from her brother.

“Why?”

"I may fear the answer."

“Well, if there is anything Asra is good for, it’s for advice about magic.” Portia tries to give Montag a smile.

"’_I'm not taking apprentices.’ _" Hey, that imitation didn't come out too bad, and he adds a dramatic grasping of a pendant he's not wearing. Does Asra even know he does that when something is on his mind?

Bursting into a fit of giggles, Portia smiles. “That’s perfect!

Suddenly, he understands a little better why Noddy likes her. The compliment comes off so honest, so straight, that it's easy to believe she means it.  
"But you came to ask questions. Shall we collect what's on your list first, or see if your cards are kind?"

She considers for all of a second, before bouncing in her seat. “Let’s see the cards!”

"As the little lady wishes. So. If I remember correctly, we ask what you want to know first, and then decide on how to lay down the cards?"

“Oooh, you -are- new at this, aren’t you?” Portia smirks, “I have a question, maaaybe it’s about my love life. Go on, shuffle them.” She gestures him on. “Let me cut the deck after a second, and then I’ll pick three for now, okay? I’ll take it easy on you.” She grins.

_ Yes, girl, I'm a moron, and there aren't about fifty different spreads in the stuff I read alone, and if you want something about your love life, there are... Gods, you like yourself in this role, don't you? A mother to an unruly and slightly slow child? Explains a lot about your brother. Shuffle you say, just like that, to a one-armed man. Well, watch me.  
_And he shuffles. Monty is at least a pro at that - the one-handed shuffle is a thing that he learned back in the day as a mercenary. Saved another man's life, that stupid card trick, because Lucio had been in a generous mood with his prisoners after a battle and promised them to let them go if one of them could show him something he'd never seen. This guy could, and did, and Lucio kept his promise, but only after he taught him how to do it.  
Lies down the cards on the table then, all while keeping his silver gaze on her. "Cut."

Eyes wide as she watches him, Portia nods approvingly. “I kinda expected you to just swish them around the table.” She cuts the deck, takes a breath, and pulls three at random, pushing the rest aside. “Okay!” Completely obvious to his train of thought, the redhead is exuberant.

"It would make playing Poker pretty silly, don't you think?" he grins. "Turn the first one for things past."

She flips it without hesitation. “Page of Cups. Hmmmm....” Devious, she peeks up at Monty. “Wanna tell me what that means?”

_ Listen to what those little fuckers have to say. Cups was something with abundance, right? And that one...  
_He stares at the card. "You... you have an open heart and allow yourself to get surprised quite easily. Enjoy it. You... had a crush?" A look towards her, and out of a feeling he adds a hesitant "Several?"

Portia’s excitement falls, blinking curiously. “Asra must have told you.” Slowly, she blushes.

"Asra has told me that you get a discount, and that's about it. Sorry." He smiles, a bit embarrassed.

Pursing her lips slightly, Portia considers. “If you say so.” She holds her hand over the next card, suddenly hesitant. Flips it. “Reversed Hermit. Aw, really?”

"Ha, him I know. He comes to me often enough. Search for enlightenment and the right way, but not one for relationships. None of your crushes going too rosy, then, but being alone is hard?"

With a pout, Portia turns to Monty. “Maybe.” Looks down again at the card, “Yes.”

"Why do you think that is, Lady Portia?" It's easier than expected to keep a straight face instead of breaking into at least a somewhat triumphant smirk, but then, he's not really feeling it anyway.

“What is it about me they don’t like?!” She finally whines, burying her head in her arms and slumping onto the table.

_ Your personality, probably. Loud and obnoxious and full of yourself to hide your insecurities, just like your brother. _ "Why is your heart so easy to open and so ready to be filled? What are you lacking?"

Picking herself up from the table, she looks at him, expression downright pitiful. “Nahara _ ghosted _ me! Do you know how hard that is when you work for her sister?!”

_ Deep breath. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Wait, Nahara? Miss Kick-Ass-Moral-Highground ghosted you? Now I'm actually impressed. What the hells did you do?" _ And he just needs to ask that: "Well, what happened between the two of you?"

“I dunno, we were just hanging out every so often, and it was fun, and I asked her to come break into Valerius’ place with me and release his pet peacock and she never showed up! I nearly got caught! I haven’t heard from her since! And Nazali said I remind them too much of my brother, bleh... And Navra just laughed at me...”

_ Did you try to seduce everyone of them including my wife? Is that it? Do you just really wanna be bedded by royalty? _ "Do you mean hanging out or-," he wriggles a suggestive brow, " _ hanging out _?"

Portia puffs up, turning to the last card instead. Taking a moment, she flips it. “The 4 of Wands reversed.” She pouts again, “Well, that’s not very helpful.”

"May be about change, for you. Unfinished things, or half-finished ones, or a change that needs to come. Maybe it wants to tell you that love is not waiting for you where you're looking for it now?"

All of a sudden, he looks up at her again, eyes wide. "You feel very lonely, don't you? Because it feels like none of them can survive without you, no matter how grown up they pretend to be, and you want them to love you, because you think you damn well _ deserve _ it?"

Affronted, Portia gasps. After a beat, she gathers her cards back together. Behind a pouty front, she looks as though she is trying to keep her displeasure from growing.  
With a huff, she stands up.  
“Hold onto that list, okay? Knowing Asra, half of it is out of stock anyway. Have him let us know when the order is ready.”  
She smiles a strained smile at him, waving slightly.  
“It was nice to meet you, Monty.” And with that, she leaves.

"Farewell, Portia," he mumbles, still sitting, not even trying to stop her hasty exit. That was... unexpected. The words were just _ there _, cutting their way over his tongue like knives, and he knows it was true, but very much not what she wanted to hear.  
Montag muses for a little while if he should try to feel bad, but quickly decides that no, she's not the right person to start that on.


	9. Chapter 9

"Will you ask him and explain what will be done or will it be a  _ surprise _ ?"

"I don't think he would understand if I tried to explain it to him, but I'll give him at least a little warning." A small smile from the magician tried to soften the bear's still hardened expression.

That at least is rewarded with a slow nod. Muriel doesn't wish any further dramatic breakdowns. One had been enough, even if it was over two years ago by now. It had been another favor, one both Asra and the apprentice had asked for, and the bear was much stronger and steadfast by now, but still... if there had to be tears, they should be silent.

\-- The welcome Monty gets here isn't warm, not at all. Out here in the woods, Muriel's eyes are burning emeralds, and he seems even bigger, even stronger than he did in the Colosseum. Asra has still not told Monty why exactly he brought him here, to a ritual circle in a strange rock structure that led into the depths of a small cave, jaggedly cut out of a cliffside in the woods eons ago. The only thing that came from Asra on their way there was just the repeated question of if he trusted him, which the dead man couldn't answer. It was not a  _ No _ , but not a  _ Yes _ either, but still he had followed through the trees and the thorns and the circle of chalk that the magician had drawn between three large rocks. Roots of trees overhead, dug through the stone, melded into the overhang as if it had been planned by an enthusiastic architect. An overgrown path led into the brush from the mouth of it, a canopy of trees shading the whole area and casting in a gentle lush green. 

The whole thing had happened kind of fast, with Asra returning abruptly in the middle of the night, loud enough for Monty to assume someone had been trying to break in. The magician didn't seem to know what time of day it was, or have any sort of response to the amount of time he had been away (ultimately a very long week and a half). He had only waited until the morning to ask him on this strange quest. It was possible that Asra had not slept. In fact, he remains distant, as if something weighs on him. As Muriel glares at Montag, the magician's calm is threadbare, and anyone that knew him would agree. His focus flickering back and forth between the two figures before him.

"Hi." Monty tries again, earning as much of a response as the first time. A grunt, nothing more.  _ Asra has told him who I am and now they're going to kill me and make me into soup. Or maybe make me into soup while I'm still alive, to make it even more unpleasant. _

The magician walks up beside Muriel, looking to the hapless blond standing mid-circle. "You said that you wanted to learn a few tricks, right?" Asra questions, and it's hard to tell if he's trying to make light of the situation or not.

"This might be a hard sell to your usual customers, boss!" Slight panic in Monty's voice. The last time magic of a similar kind had been used was enough to satiate any kind of appetite for more of it. 

"Your clothes. Take them off." The bear's command is quiet. He doesn't even look at him as he lights the mix of oils and fats in the shells he strategically placed around this cave earlier. It's a place of childhood nightmares, at least for what remains of Montag's inner child, like in the dark stories of man-eating shamans the women told him after their hunts, because he was easily scared back then. "I'd rather not," he responds, voice trembling.

"It'll be fine," Asra tries, more nervous than he is letting on, suddenly in front of Monty, hands tangling in the hem of the blond’s shirt. Assertive, yes, but he makes the point to catch the blond's eye.  _ If you trust me, this will be easy. _

"He's doing it willingly or not at all, Asra. Don't force him to do this." A low grumble that might be Muriel's slight anger about wasting his time or something stemming from the earth itself, the magician isn't quite sure.

"Can I at least keep on the shirt?" Monty asks, taking the hem back from Asra. He had never seen Lucio this  _ ashamed _ , like a virgin almost, but Monty isn't as keen on presenting himself as the count had once been. After the question, Asra tries to count the times he has seen the dead man without his clothes and comes up with zero.

Flushed, Asra backs off to the side. He looks to Muriel, who is only focused on the task at hand, paying him no mind. There is no place for him in this ritual, he realizes. Nerves fraying on the very edges of his mind, the magician suppresses the urge to cast a protection spell on Monty. He had brought him, after all. This is his doing.

"You can't. Ask him to look away if you're too shy."

Monty very decidedly looks away, biting his lip. It's hard for him, but... "Can you just... not look at me, boss, please?"

Asra wants to scoff, but then he notices how uncomfortable the dead man actually looks. Turning around, he mutters a 'go ahead'. Some more rustling as Muriel finishes his preparations. He, maybe, has changed most of all of them in the last few years, even if it's in his calm, quiet ways. Asra always _somehow_ knew his friend had talent, but with his fear gone, nothing is there to hold it back anymore. He sees as the bear looks up and becomes very still as he looks upon the blond. "Who did that to you?"

He wants to turn around, he does, but he only watches Muriel out of the corner of his eye. A sick twisting part of him writhes, until Asra realizes it to be  _ envy _ . What was it about him that Monty trusted Muriel over him with? The blond’s newly developed sense of shame was strange for the magician.

A long silence, and no answer. "I see." The bear steps forward, between the flames. "You understand that any and all pain this may cause is only transitory and will leave no traces when this is over?" "I... I guess?" Monty sounds quite doubtful and not exactly eager for pain of any kind.

“Muriel...” Asra calls over his shoulder, still giving Monty the privacy he requested, facing off into the trees.

"It was what you wanted, wasn't it?" Something in the deep voice lets him shiver.

It hits him like cold water, and the magician cringes. His lover could easily break Monty in two behind him and he would be powerless to stop it. He had wanted this, hadn’t he? Asra sighs, nodding.

"Do you remember the rhythm I taught you to play on the drum?"

“Yes.”

"Find the drum. Play it. You--" his interest is back on Montag, "--have to listen, and have to listen well. The drum is what will keep you here with us, with your body, what will show you the way. It is your heartbeat. Do you understand?"

"No?" It sounds so meek.

"But can you  _ listen _ ? Feel the beats like when you were dancing?"

Asra walked away from the scene before he could hear a reply, to find the drum at Muriel’s urging. He went to the tucked away hut that they hadn’t quite walked Monty to.  _ This was a mistake. _ It couldn’t have been, however. Wasn’t Montag’s existence itself a mistake? Muriel in his element is a force to be reckoned with, and Asra loathes to admit that he is entirely out of his own comfort zone. Had he not been holding out for Muriel to pull off Lucio’s mask, expose him for a fraud, and kill him on the spot? Wouldn’t that be justice? What if nothing happened? What if he was wrong, and Monty an entirely new entity from Lucio, and he was putting the man in danger? 

Asra recalled the look in the blond eyes when they last saw each other, hand ruffling his hair as they had sat and smoked. The magician stands in the doorway for too long, before jumping to grab the drum from the corner of the hut. Bounding back up the bath to the ritual circle under the cavernous overhang, the violet gaze runs fleeting over the blond’s now completely bare form. Again, he twists around to face the trees out of courtesy. Gathering his knees under him to sit, he holds the drum under his arm. Taking a deep breath, Asra banishes his concern. It would not work any other way, he knew. After all, this was what  _ he wanted _ . A moment later, he begins to play.

And with the pulse of the drum, Muriel starts singing, under his breath first, then louder and louder, deep and reverberating. It's not quite words, is it? Not a language Asra understands, not quite human or that of spirits he knows, but he feels the power in it, sinks into the currents that the bear usually keeps far from him, and it's almost loud enough to drown out the dead man's little whimpers.

A breeze picks up, curving around and up, nearly picking the magician's scarves from his shoulders as he continues to play. This magic is unbeknownst to Asra, an old song he can't recall. He feels the depths of it pulling at him, sitting on the side of a vortex, with Montag in the eye of it. All superfluous thought, all apprehension, all hesitation, slipping away. It's an unveiling, of a sort, Asra can feel it, but not of the sort that responds visually. As he leans into the sensation, a familiar pang awakens in his chest, and he  _ desperately _ wants to turn around, to make sure Montag is alright. ... He wants to make sure Montag is alright. Asra's affection for the dead man is a knot, slipping loose in the breeze. As soon as it hits him, before any other thought can tie it down, it too fades in the song. This is not a thing one can fight against, and the magician allows his tension to lift, pulled away in the stream, hoping that the man in its focus does the same. He only continues to play.

Time drags and curves in strange ways as he's waking the drums heart. His hands start hurting and hurt and stop hurting again, and around him there's only Muriel's singing and the dead man's desperate, tear-filled whispers. He never has asked Muriel who is with him now in the world beyond the veil, always too busy with his own things, and not expecting an answer anyway. The magic feels like a stormwind tearing at his clothes, or maybe it's just a storm that has risen, who knows right now?

Asra’s eyes have slid shut, the only thing he is aware of is the small patch of earth that he sits on and the rhythm that carries on the wind. For all that he knew, the rest of the world could be blown away in the storm. Blind to all else, he is unable to even sense either his lover or the man in question. He  _ trusts  _ Muriel, more than anything, and it is that fact alone that leads him. The magician doesn’t even feel himself slip away in the rhythm, straight into unconsciousness.

The pop of a crackling fire wakes him with a start, and he sits up to find himself on the same mossy spot of earth he had been drumming on. Had he passed out? He must have. Finally spinning around, the magician finds the fire, with Muriel and Monty, dressed, sitting beside it.

The dead man is curled up and fast asleep. Whatever Muriel had done must have done a number on him. The bear meanwhile just sits, unmoving like a statue, and stares into the flames. There's still a smear of something dark and grimy under his eyes, a reminder of his magical warpaint.

Asra eases over to him, wary of the lingering power in the air hanging about them. Whatever storm there had been was passed. The magician looks to Monty, the way his ribs expand while he breathes, before staring into the fire to watch Muriel in his periphery.

"You probably want to know what I think of him." The bear's face is unfamiliar.

"Yes." There was no use in hiding it.

"He is a strange one." A long pause. "Blood on his hand, but not drawn willingly. Empty like a child, and yet things locked away. Is he another one like your apprentice? A shell filled with magic and memories?"

The words sink in as the bear speaks, leading Asra back to Monty’s sleeping visage. “If you are asking if I brought him back from the dead, then no. It wasn’t me.” Not exactly. “Why?”

"Because I don't think he has been of this world for too long, and there's magic on him, an old, wild one. Why did you take him under your wing?"

There aren’t a lot of ways Asra can answer that Muriel wouldn’t know to be a lie. Finally, he looks to the man, flame illuminating his features, making him look as if he had always been there, part of the wood and rock. “... I want to help him. Whatever he went through, whatever wild magic, it seems to have changed him. I think he is worthy of help.”

"Know that he has an enemy then, one from the South, calling upon old spirits and their own hate. One of his own blood. Don't expect them to be happy with him being happy in any way." The undertone of worry is clear.

"So that's the source of his block." The realization comes suddenly, before Asra looks sheepish. "He has been teaching himself behind my back," He mentions in a preemptive defense.

"You don't take apprentices." Muriel isn't one for irony, and yet this very much sounds like it.

"No, I don't." The magician bites back, before softening. "I need to know if he would be trouble if he keeps learning, because he's going to try as long as I give him a roof."

"He may be trouble as long as you give him a roof. That only makes him more interesting for you, right?" A tired little smile. He knows the magician for too long.

Asra flushes and looks away from Muriel, back into the fire. His curiosity would always get the best of him. A vague snore leaves the sleeping blond. The magician sighs. "Thank you, for doing this."

"What will you do with him?"

"I should throw him out, shouldn't I? That would be easiest. The shop has done so much better with him, though, that I don't--," Asra pauses, drawing his knees into his chest, "I don’t know if I could do it without him."

"Are you still trying to impress them after all the time? Doubt they'll take it from you unless you  _ ask _ them to be freed." Muriel pats his leg, an invitation to place the white curls there.

The magician’s tension unlocks at this, all of his attention directed at the bear as he melts down into the spot. Finally, contentment settles into his bones, resting on Muriel’s thigh. For once, Montag doesn’t matter. For several moments, Asra lets nothing bother him, only allowing his awareness around the two of them. “It’s about forgiveness.” He finally sighs, playing with a strap of fur draped over Muriel’s leg.

"In whose place are you putting him, Asra? Another man with one arm?" Huge fingers tangle into the magician's hair.

He freezes for a moment, before leaning into the touch. The fire burns on before them, and Asra notes where the wood is charred to ash. “Is that so wrong?” He is meek, unaware that he has curled up around his lover’s leg, hugging the appendage tightly.

"You really think you need to  _ forgive _ Lucio? Of all people?"

“No, I don’t  _ need _ to, and a part of me can’t.” He lacks the heart to do it. He sighs again, glad that his face is obscured from the bear. “I might actually  _ want _ to,” the magician admits softly.

"Mrh. I see." Long silence, and a heavy hand calming on the slim shoulder. Then a gentle "Do you know why he's ashamed of you?"

Asra recalls all of the other times he had found them sat like this, all but cradled together, going back years. His head feels heavy, his body wanting to melt away, exposed. “Why?” Sadness inherent in his tone.

"Whatever has been done to him has left marks on his body. It seems he fears your eyes on them." The question  _ why _ the strange man should care for it remained unspoken.

“... How do I help him?”

"Have you asked him what  _ he wants _ ?" Too many discussions about that. How he had never asked the apprentice or Muriel, and how that had pushed them away when they had grown enough to stand on their own feet, and yet, there's no accusation in the deep voice.

Asra softens, lifting a hand to hold the one at his shoulder, a blush across his face. “... No, I haven’t.”

"Maybe you should start with that then."

Asra shifts to sit up, looking to Muriel. “What is the nature of the magic placed on him?” Asking in hushed tones, the magician leans into the larger form.

"Blood. Blood and hate. It may be  _ geasa _ , wiping out the things those who spoke them did not want to see in him."

Asra’s stomach drops slightly.  _ Blood magic. _ He should have known. Frustration digs at the magician. “Hate?” That he can understand at least.

"This is nothing you do for fun. It costs you as dearly as it cost him. Can't imagine another reason than that."

It would explain a lot. The magician curls around the bear’s form once more, arms about his waist. Asra has sworn off blood magic, Muriel knows. He gave up enough of himself the last time.

"You are sure he  _ wants _ your help, Asra? He doesn't seem to... sometimes there's pus under a wound, and it wants and needs to break open to heal. It didn't feel like that with him."

“I should ask.” Asra states plainly, almost flat.

\-- The early morning sun streaks through the wood around them, all traces of the previous day and its storm gone. Birdsong carries through the leaves as they gently rustle in a calm breeze, the winding path through the wood clearer than it had been before. Lined with pine needles that cushion their steps and fresh blossoms scented with dew, Montag blindly follows the magician onward. Patches of light catch the fluffy head of hair as they progress in relative silence.

"Do you now know what you needed to know, boss?" It takes a long while for the dead man to ask it, and he only does it because he  _ needs _ to, because all of this can't have been for nothing, can it? Nothing against this pleasant morning walk, nothing at all, mornings like this were among the things that kept him going in the last years, when the world seemed friendly and innocent, but today, there's a strange air around them that spoils the atmosphere.

“Hm? Yes,” Asra replies, but doesn’t turn around, only continuing to walk onward. “How are you feeling?”

"Like I had a really long nap. Probably didn't, right? That's not what you brought me there for."

They trudged on, despite the calming aura the forest projected. “No, you didn’t,” Asra validates, “Your curse remains intact, if you were worried.”

"Well, Muriel didn't break my neck, so I figured." An uneasy laugh. "So, what was it about? Do I want to know?"

Asra wonders if not to tell him, to leave him in the dark and keep it that way. Muriel had been firm with him, though, hitting home with the implication that the magician should ask for once. At this, he stops before a small batch of blooming calla sitting in a patch of sun, the same color as his hair. Turning to Montag, Asra gives him a sad gaze. "What were you hoping to get from all of this?"

"What? This?" Silver eyes shift from tree to Asra and to another tree. " Well, it seemed to be important to you."

It had been, back when Asra was intent on proving him to be a fraud. "It was," Wanting to press on  _ and escape _ , instead, he shifts his attention to a vine that had crept up a nearby tree, running a hand up along its grasp. "It showed me more about myself than you," A bittersweet smile graced his lips, realizing that the vine would someday choke the tree it grew along.

"Had trouble with your boyfriend because of me?" Monty catches up with him, elbows him in the side. "You're making that face again."

Asra looks away from him, idly tugging at the vine. After a pained pause, distant birds calling to one another overhead, a curious gaze falls back to Monty. “Do you want my help?”

"You already took me in. That is way more than I could have expected. Everything else... I guess I'll have to do myself, so it counts."  _ Also, I had your help once already, and that didn't exactly end up the way you promised, quite the opposite, but it's not like I'm vengeful, you know? _

The magician shrugs, “Lucio’s gone.” He pulls away from the tree, amethyst gaze looking Monty dead on. “I lied about binding you. I gave up blood magic years ago. I’m sorry.”

"So you'll be upping my salary then?" The blond grins, just  _ grins _ , not willing to show any true emotion.  _ Like I ever believed you had the power to pull a stunt like that out of your sleeve, Asra. Your apprentice, maybe, but not you. Well, maybe I did for a bit, I give you that, but then I remembered how much prep work everything back then took you. _

“Yes.”

"Nice. And be a little paranoid because I might try to kill you yet now?"

Asra smiles in spite of himself, incredulous, daring the dead man to make a move. “Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t tried already.”

"Maybe because you're stuck as much as me, boss. Stuck in a situation you don't really want to be in, but you also don't really know how you want it to be, and that is somehow worse than death. Well, at least emotionally, in the long term."  _ Also, in my head it always ends with me strangling you, and I'd need two arms for that to be really satisfying. _

"We are stuck, so..." At this, the magician shies away, ducking behind a tree slightly. He bends down to look at a blossom, studying it. "If there's anything I can do... to help, let me know."

"I need a new arm."  _ There. I said it. Yeah, I know you can't do it. I know who can, but we're facing a little problem here, you know, with all my possibilities gone and the Horned Guy not strictly being available anymore. _

Asra's eyes widen and he quickly stands up to face Monty. "An arm." Is the only thing that leaves his mouth for a few moments, looking to the space where there was once a shining gold prosthetic. The word sits briefly, before the magician's expression blinks blankly and evenly. Finally, he gives him a nod. "I'll help you get a new arm."

"You will?" Monty sounds genuinely surprised. "That's something you can do?"

"I told you I would help, didn't I?" The magician prods; Muriel's words and touches fading with the heat in his cheeks, "Unless you plan to kill me with it."

"Well... you might actually be the best chance to find a way to where we need to go..."

Brows knit, and the magician looks curious. "Where?"

"Errr... well..." Monty almost says it on the spot, because that's just stating facts, but realizes in time that probably no one had ever  _ told _ Asra. "You... might wanna sit down for that. And have a drink to steady your nerves."

Asra looks at him scrutinizingly, before sighing. "Let's get back to the shop."

\-- On the way, things return to normal way too fast. "Hey Asra, take a look?" here and "I got a little question!" there. Even a customer waiting in front of their door. It never had been like this in the old days. People knew the shop  _ existed _ , but they didn't much care for it. Way too strange and different.

It was almost enough commotion to distract Asra from their earlier conversation. It weighs heavy on his mind, both the ominous nature of what Monty has to tell him, and the fact that he has given his word to help him. All day, the magician has become hyper aware of the dead man, always sensing when he is around, chancing glances over at the back of his head. The digging nature of regret arises in the back of his mind as he works, up until they are closing up the shop.

"What you want for dinner, boss?" Monty leans heavy on the magician's shoulder, sudden closeness that never felt like an option.

They stay that way, Asra humming in consideration. "While I want to continue our earlier conversation, I'm going to assume I should be on a full stomach. For the drinking. Am I right?" He smirks knowingly.

"And to make you slow and lazy, yeah." The old grin is back. The dead man has done something wrong and knows it all too well.

Asra stifles a scoff, amusement crossing his features fleetingly. "Whatever it is, make it quick." He drops his shoulder to let Monty slide off, before heading into the kitchen.

As it turns out, it was fast, and pretty decent, and just filling enough to cushion the very full glass Monty has poured for the magician. Asra wears the same expression he used to have years ago, looking upon a dying man who was trying his nerves.

"Sooo... did I ever tell you who made my arm back in the day?" Monty starts, all innocence.

Before giving a reply, the magician takes a long drink from his glass. Gives him a questioning look. “No, you didn’t. Who built your arm?”

Monty blushes preemptively. Swallows hard. "Your father, most of it."

Asra is glad he didn’t take a second drink, or else he would have spat it out across the kitchen. “My  _ father _ ?”

"Well, yes. His wife, too. Your mother, probably."  _ My, this is awkward. _

Almost predictably, Asra jumps onto his feet, daggers in his eyes. The glass nearly topples over, but remarkably it doesn't fall. " _ That's why you locked them up?! _ " He's about to pounce on the man.

"I could not allow them to go off and possibly die on some stupid suicidal magical adventure, now could I?" Lucio stands, hand raised in defense.

"What are you talking about?" Asra snaps, looking as if he's seconds away from throwing him out for real this time.

"Do you have any idea how many people were after them for what they created? The possibilities such a construct would bring?”

“Because of  _ you _ , you and your  _ selfish _ entitled vanity!” The magician starts, looking at Monty with a sharp point, before he takes another long drink. “This better have a purpose.”

"They would have been the reason for wars. I needed to keep them safe, but... they... well, either they escaped, or they got lost trying. What I want to say is that we never  _ found _ them, which very probably means they're still alive."

Asra's jaw drops, face falling. Dumbly, he sits back down. For several moments, he looks entirely lost. "Why didn't you tell me sooner!?"

"When would you have believed me, mh? Would there ever have been a moment?"

"Yes?"  _ No. _ The magician tries, before shaking his head. "And you want me to help you find them to  _ do it all over again _ ?"

"Well..." Monty shrugs, "It doesn't have to be gilded, you know?" He looks  _ guilty _ , for the first time ever it feels like, with his head bright red.

A portion of Asra takes joy in that, while the rest of him holds back from shoving him right out the door. Taking a heated breath through a grimace, he leans on the table, letting his face fall into his other hand. Every fraction of his being trembling in restrained rage, before taking another deep breath, slowly growing still. "No. I can't sense them." The magician looks up through his fingers, anger in his eyes, although his demeanor calmed. "I've never been able to sense them. Not for years, not since... I can't help you."

"I think I know where to  _ start _ . Just not how to get there."

Standing again, Asra shakes his head. " _ No. _ " His entire expression has a disapproving bent, shifting from twisting anger to pained sadness right before Monty’s eyes. "I  _ can't _ -" Unable to help it, the word breaks in this throat, "- sense them. I'm not having  _ you _ lead me to their graves." The edge in his tone returns.

"I don't think they're dead.  _ He _ would have told me." Monty's face is frozen.  _ This was a really bad idea.  _ Livid, the magician points to his chest.

"Take off your shirt."

He shakes his head. Whatever Asra made him go through in the woods must have been bad enough, and this is bad enough already on it's own.

The magician looks at him with disgust.  _ Muriel couldn't have been wrong, could he? _ He feels betrayed, that the idea of being at peace with the dead man turned out to be a lie. "Why?"

"Because I don't want  _ you _ to see. You, or anyone." Monty bites his lip. Traces of old vanity still remain.

Asra blinks at him, before sighing in aggravation. "If I want to find my parents, I don't want it to be for  _ any _ other reason than the fact that you  _ robbed _ me of them for years!" Just as he thinks he can see the blond try to respond, he jumps, poking Monty in the chest, "-- And NO, I don't want any more of your  _ excuses _ that you never seem to run out of. Why should I even  _ trust you _ ?! What is to say that the moment we find them, you won't lock me up with them?" Eyes water again, and he the magician blinks it away. Slowing, the accusing jab drops away. The pleading look on Asra’s face speaks of the newfound conflict between who he knows Monty is and Lucio isn’t. "How can I trust you?"

_ Why should I lock you up? You can't do anything I need, and if I want my back stabbed again, I'll pay a proper assassin, not a lover scorned. _ Monty doesn't say that, nor storm out onto the street with a dramatic banging of doors, even though the thought is briefly there. Burning bridges is easier when you have places to go back to. "Why are you so terribly keen on seeing me naked, boss?" he asks instead, and tries to grin. "Thought that was a customer thing."

Despite the magician's recoil in response, the flush that blossoms across his face is obvious. "I don't want to see you naked! I just want to know why you made me turn around before the ritual."  _ I was scared because I couldn't see you. _ Stuffing the thought aside, Asra haughtily crosses his arms across his chest. "Trust me, the weight you've gained only makes you look alive again. The ‘skin and bones’ look died when you did." He doesn’t say it like a compliment, but it’s there.

"Jules still pulls it off though. Seems he didn't get the memo." Grin widening. "But seriously, boss, I... I just look like shit. This is not in attractively-rogueish-scar territory, it's just..." His head sinks down.

"It's what your mother did." Asra states gently, the nature of the magic done to Monty finally sinking in. A blockage, but also an unclosing wound. The blood on his shirt from the day he had shown up at the shop, it hadn't healed, not fully.  _ It's not going to. _ It's what kept him in place, it was what caused him not to be seen for who he was.  _ Undoing that would... _ "That's okay."

"Of course you'd say that. You don't look like a half-butchered piece of.... I dunno. Stallion. She just could have  _ told _ me she doesn't like my style. Maybe I would have buttoned up."

Asra scoffs a small laugh, and inwardly curses himself for allowing Monty to get his guard down. Again. "It's definitely a new look on you."

"Probably would have worked without all the magic stuff. What is Lucio without his fabulous pecs?" Still he's grinning, desperately so, clinging to that little laugh he got out of the magician, and yet, his voice is a little shaky.

The smallest smile on Asra's face fades quickly. Looking down, then off into nowhere, before tentatively back at Monty, he shifts weight, as if ready to walk away. "I'll help you."

"We could help each other, for a change, you know? Partners in crime, stealing back from the Devil what he had no right to take. Something like that. Sounds way more...  _ dynamic _ ."

Violet eyes train on him for a long moment, before the magician smiles.


	10. Chapter 10

Sunshine pours in through the curtains, onto the kitchen table, where a matching set of tea cups lands on a white tablecloth, adorned with twin painted cats to match the purring ball of fur that jumps up onto the windowsill. Pepi purrs at Portia, who is trying to pour tea without reaching out to pet her.

A plate of messily made blackberry hand pies is set out on the table beside pristine macrons, as well as a bowl of fruit, all set to match the tea cups and the sash she wears around her waist. Like so many things over the recent years, it is something Portia recently acquired, gifts from the Countess and her new spouse. "You don't visit enough!" She pouts at her brother, before considering. "Mazelinka probably says the same thing about me though, huh?"

"She's too busy saying it about me when I drop by. That's just a busy workday for you these days, as sad as that is. Doesn't even leave time for the necessary upkeep, right?" Ilya steals a single berry from one of the cakes before he tries the tea. "Maybe we should get a servant ourselves."

His sister scoffs, also picking a berry from another slice of cake before sitting down across from him. Pepi quickly finds herself a spot with them, curling up in the girl's lap. "I don't think you could even find a servant willing to clean up after you. I've seen your place," The younger Devorak chides, adding cream and sugar to her tea.

"If they managed to keep the palace neat in its worst days, they can manage my apartment with ease. And I've gotten better!"

"Oh really?" She looks as if she is about to roll her eyes. "When was the last time you had another person walk in and not recoil?"

"That was..." He muses. Did his last visitor recoil? He stayed, and stayed for the night, but didn't come back after that, but maybe he just didn't have time, and Ilya didn't really have time to look after him either, so... "Hm." Another berry.

“Hmmmm?” Portia leans in, giving him a look that teases ‘What did you do now?’

"I'm just no good at keeping things neat and tidy, okay?" He blushes, never a good liar. “Your ears are red!” Portia laughs, pointing. Pepi sits up as if to confirm this for her, before lying back down. “And? Was there a flinch?”

"Mebbewastoobusy." He stuffs his face with a too big bite of cake. A tingle rising up his spine as the memories of the night briefly return.

All of this only serves to make his sister giggle sinisterly, in a way that only younger sisters can do to their older brothers. "So you did have someone over!" She also grabs a hand pie and nibbles on it idly.

"I'm old enough, and attractive enough, to occasionally do so, you know? It... just wasn't anything of consequence. Don't have time for that anyway." As he says that, he wonders if it's actually true. He hasn't even _ tried _ to court anyone since that whole mess with Lucio, always being on his feet and never clicking with anyone enough to talk about his needs openly. Death not breathing down his neck anymore seems to have ruined his libido.

Watching Julian, she pouts for him, before looking down at her fuzzy companion affectionately. Pepi always cheers her up. After a beat, she lifts a brow. "Didja meet Asra's new apprentice -er, employee?"

"The blond guy with the beard? Sure. Really not what I would have expected Asra to pick, to be honest." _ Not his type at all. _ "You did too?"

She nods. "Gave me one heck of a reading." Now, she blushes. "I might have stormed out?" Another one of the tiny cakes goes.

_ Oh my _. "Huffing and puffing because he said something you didn't want to hear? Thought you grew out of that with the new job."

"Ilya!" She lazily tosses a strawberry at him, "You're one to talk! So? Did he give you a reading too?"

"You know I'm not into that. By now, I may admit it could offer some valuable insights now and then, but I don't think I want to know." His eyes tighten. Here, alone with her, there's no need for the eyepatch, and it always comes as a relief. "So, what did he tell you?"

Portia indeed huffs, looking off. She can still hear the man's words 'entitled', and it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Biting her lip, she cringes, which would be a much more effective gesture before anyone other than her brother. "He told me that I felt 'entitled' to be loved, and that's why Nahara ghosted."

Ilya, too, bites his lip, but doesn't entirely manage to stifle a laugh. "Well... you are a bit... possessive, now and then, you know? Especially when you set your mind on something." _ And he must have a death wish to tell her that to her face. Brave Monty. _

She scoffs. "You're one to talk. You never get over anyone." Munching a raspberry, she shakes her head slightly. "You just had someone over." A cheeky grin spreads across her face. "When's the wedding?"

"Never, I think," he says carefully, tasting the words leaving his mouth. "There've been enough weddings for quite a while, at least for me." He's lacking something that was very much him for so many years. The burning wish to see the other again, to dedicate his whole life to him, to become _ whole _, it... just isn't there.

“Oh? Reeeally?” She questions disbelievingly, before waiting a beat and raising a brow. “Wait, really?”

"Think so, yeah. It was... nice and all, but, um... work just felt more important? There are people to take care of."

“There are always people to take care of.” She sips her tea.

"That's the nice thing about our jobs, right? Taking care of folks who need it."

After a pleasant lull, he gets another side eye. “And you’re saying that you’re okay with not having anyone take care of _ you _?”

"I have been for quite a while, Pasha. Even if you never wanted to hear it." His smile is filled with sadness. It feels like the end of something.

She pouts in response, before hugging Pepi close. It only serves to make the feline slip out from her arms like water, and she lets out a huff. “That sounds like what Monty was saying.”

"Oh does it, you horrible little brat?" He chuckles.

“Ilya!” Portia shoots another blueberry at him, and it bounces off and hits the table before rolling away onto the floor. She ends up begrudgingly smiling. “I’m not a _ brat _ though... am I?” She looks hopeful.

"I wouldn't use that word," he murmurs. "But you tend to get a bit moody if things aren't going your way."

“That’s a good enough reason to ghost me?!”

"Being an adult with responsibilities is. Being royalty, too. That makes it worse. Are you really still cross with her?"

"It's not her..." She quickly replied, looking in his direction, but not at him, and paused "I think it's me. Yeah. I'm mad at me."

"Did the new guy put a spell on you?" An uneasy laugh, sudden worry clear in his face.

Portia's eyes go wide. "Do you think he did?! How can I tell?"

"I don't think he could even if he wanted to. And why should he? He doesn't know you." Ilya reaches over and pats her arm. "Why are you mad at yourself, Pasha?"

“I think I... screwed things up!” She sighs, pounding the table lightly while pouting.

"We all do that sometimes. Well, except for the Countess, but she doesn't count."

“No, but like, a lot. With her sisters.” Portia slides down to the table on her elbows.

"What did you expect them to do? In the end, we're nothing but peasants. Nice things to play with for a while, but nothing to even think about keeping." A bitterness coming from his own experiences. Ilya never had told her about them, but the other servants at the palace very much did.

Her pout grows. “The Countess is different.”

He shakes his head, hesitantly. "I thought so too. I truly wanted to believe it."

“Vesuvia’s the best it’s been!” She shakes her head as well, giving her brother a confused look. “Ever since the wedding, the palace has been the nicest place.”

"And outside, improvements have been incremental. Pasha, I've been there. It's so very easy to forget how the world feels when your pocket and your stomach are full, right? When you're surrounded by beautiful people who's problems mainly consist of love and what to wear next? You might be full of best intentions, even keep being so, but soon the solutions you come up with aren't worth anything. Hells, even Lucio was..." Different. In the beginning, before taking the throne, he had been.

Portia makes a face, disgusted. “Lucio? The Count was a jerk!” She gestures to his eye. “He did _ that _.”

"He was different before. I mean, um, before that whole Count-thing." He looks like he knows he made a mistake saying that, especially to her.

“You can’t say things aren’t better. You’re happier, I’m happier, the magic shop is even making actual _ money _ . How could you say that?” Portia barely knew the dead Count when he was a ghost wandering the palace, but knew enough to dislike the man immensely. She scoffs. “ _ You _ are the one that should ask Monty for a reading.”

_ I'm putting most of my money into the clinic in the South End instead of nice interior design, and I'm not the only one. Just because we learned to work past the official channels better than we used to, and even folks like Valerius are playing along,.. _ Ilya sighs silently. "And what shall that reading be about, mh?"

Portia pauses, humming in consideration. Then, she smirks. “That one night stand I don’t believe you actually had?”

"I, um..." He blushes. "What are the cards supposed to tell me about it, mh? 'You caught an odd new disease and will have a new career in research due to it?' And what does 'I don't believe you had' mean, eh?"

“You? See someone once? Ha!” She teases, popping another berry into her mouth.

"There's a difference between seeing someone once and obsessing over them, and I'm trying not to do the latter." It had been too nice to only see him once. Monty had known which buttons to push even when Ilya was too tied up to tell him, keeping him dancing madly on the edge of cumming like he knew his body in an out and only taking care of _ him _ for a change, a rare feat for someone he just met.

Portia lands her elbows on the table and leans in expectantly. “Anyone I know?”

"Don't think you do, no." She didn't, not really. Well, neither did he, right? Maybe he _ should _ go and get a reading, but that would be awkward.

Her eyes narrow, and Pepi rubs up against the doctor's leg. A brief cloud passes overhead outside, dulling the sun's rays as it shines through the curtains. "That cutie pear merchant?"

"You know my opinions about unnecessary fruit. Your type though?"

Portia falls forward in a fit of giggles, "Do you even eat, Ilya?" Pepi jumps into his lap. "And maybe I got a free pear, and wanted to see if that happened to everyone?"

"I'm pretty sure I eat. It's vital to keeping oneself alive. I just may not exactly remember what it was. I mean, delicious cake, obviously, but..."

"Ilya!" Although still laughing, she pulls away the cake in front of him, and swaps it for the bowl of remaining berries.

"It's fine, Pasha. It's not like I'm still growing," he grins. "And you know I'm still not so much into the whole tarot thing. Never turned out well for me."

The cat in his lap curiously bats at the bowl of fruit, successfully getting a raspberry to topple over and right off of the table. "Pepi!" The girl chides, standing. The cat bounces off of Julian, wandering off. At that, she looks into their teacups. "I can make more." Before waiting for a response, she goes to boil water. Coming back, she makes a face. "I just hate feeling like I screwed something up," She pouts briefly. Then, she straightens, before picking up the mostly empty teapot, nodding to herself. "I'm going to apologize."

"You're going to... _ what? _" He's not trying to hide his disbelief. "Are you sure?"

Portia nods again, looking determined, if not a little upset. "Yes!" She smacks the side of the teapot in her hand, lid jangling in place. Unable to stop from pouting, she huffs to herself, "Four of wands reversed. Ugh, Monty was right."

"Because that of course means that...?" Tone of voice as if he's talking to a slightly manic patient.

"I was being an idiot!" She sighs, before starting on him. "And not because of any weird class tension, well, maybe, but still! -- It's because the cards were right! I have to work through this, and it's because, I was--" She tries not to roll her eyes, "Being entitled." At that, she moves to turn off the boiling water.

"And you think saying sorry will help with that?" Chin in his hands and thoughtful eyes. "Or do you just want to make a better impression on him then you did with your exit stage right?"

"Do you think it wouldn't help?" She peers over at him curiously after pouring steaming water into the teapot. Pepi bounces up to curl around her leg, and she smiles.

"I wonder if you might feel worse. Or if you want to make _ him _ feel better." Under the table, Ilya crosses his fingers.

Portia groans, bringing the tea back over. "Why would I want _ him _ to feel better?"

He sighs a sigh of relief. Whatever had taken hold of her hadn't taken root deep enough to change _ that _ . "I know neither Mazelinka nor you are big on saying sorry, but _ asking for forgiveness _ is mainly about the other one, not yourself."

"I want _ Nahara _ to forgive me!" Portia pours another cup of tea. "... And maybe some of Milady's other sisters too." She grumbles.

"Doubt they're angry with you. They've just had more important things to take care of, and, these days, so do you. How are things going at the Palace?"

"Oh, super busy with the festival coming up and everything. Organizing flower deliveries, making sure the right tapestries end up in the right rooms." Portia lists, while she pours him another cup as well. "Figuring out a festival route! It's a lot."

The conversation continues onto more simplistic things, scheduling, work, and groceries. By the time they finish their second cup of tea, however, Portia is set on paying Monty another visit. Julian can’t say he wasn't a little relieved, afraid that his sister would push him into going along. This way, she keeps the workings of her personal life away from him, and as much as he cares about her, some things he just doesn’t want to know. That she immediately forgets about his little affair now that it’s about her problems again is a relief too. Julian leaves her cottage soon after, glad to have steered away from the jagged cliffs that are the shop's newest employee.


End file.
